Compare two arrays regardless of order

Compare the sorted sets of distinct values.

JavaScript Version 1.0.0 · MIT · .md

function isEqualIgnoringOrder({ a, b }) { const normalize = values => JSON.stringify([...new Set(values)].sort()); return normalize(a) === normalize(b); }

Input & expected output

{
  "a": [
    "[email protected]",
    "[email protected]"
  ],
  "b": [
    "[email protected]",
    "[email protected]"
  ]
}

true

The edge case

{
  "a": [
    1,
    1,
    2
  ],
  "b": [
    2,
    1
  ]
}

true

Know the limits

• Duplicates are ignored, as the edge case shows; compare counts when multiplicity matters.
• Default sort converts to strings: 10 sorts before 9, which is fine for equality.

The function above is the implementation used by the lab. The lab validates JSON types and caps size before execution; include equivalent validation when accepting untrusted input in your application.

Keep exploring

• Clone an array — Create a new array without copying the objects inside it.
• Remove duplicate values — Keep the first occurrence of each value, in its original order.
• Flatten a nested array — Turn a nested array into one sequence of values.