Best way to get intersection of keys of two objects?

Question

I have two object literals like so:

var firstObject =
{
    x: 0,
    y: 1,
    z: 2,

    a: 10,
    b: 20,
    e: 30
}

var secondObject =
{
    x: 0,
    y: 1,
    z: 2,

    a: 10,
    c: 20,
    d: 30
}

I want to get the intersection of the keys these two object literals have like so:

var intersectionKeys  = ['x', 'y', 'z', 'a']

I can obviously do a loop and see if a key with the same name exists in the other object, but I am wondering if this would be a good case for some functional programming and map / filter / reduce usage? I myself have not done that much functional programming, but I have a feeling, that there could exist a clean and clever solution for this problem.

Answer 1

A solution without indexOf.

var firstObject = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, b: 20, e: 30 },
    secondObject = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, c: 20, d: 30 };

function intersection(o1, o2) {
    return Object.keys(o1).concat(Object.keys(o2)).sort().reduce(function (r, a, i, aa) {
        if (i && aa[i - 1] === a) {
            r.push(a);
        }
        return r;
    }, []);
}

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(intersection(firstObject, secondObject), 0, 4) + '</pre>');

Second attempt with O(n).

var firstObject = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, b: 20, e: 30 },
    secondObject = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, c: 20, d: 30 };

function intersection(o1, o2) {
    return Object.keys(o1).filter({}.hasOwnProperty.bind(o2));
}

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(intersection(firstObject, secondObject), 0, 4) + '</pre>');

Answer 2

The given answers are nice and astonishing but there could be a problem in void's answer and that is: "What if one of property values intentionally set to undefined."

Nina's answer is good (really fantastic) but as we are in the edge of tomorrow of JavaScript I think mine wont be too bad:

var a = { x: undefined, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, b: 20, e: 30 }
var b = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, c: 20, d: 30 }

function intersect(o1, o2){
    return Object.keys(o1).filter(k => k in o2)
}

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(intersect(a, b)) + '</pre>');

---

Update

onalbi mentioned some performance issue in comments which is rational and therefore the code bellow seems to be a better way to handle the problem:

var a = { x: undefined, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, b: 20, e: 30};
var b = { x: 0, y: 1, z: 2, a: 10, c: 20, d: 30};

function intersect(o1, o2) {

  const [k1, k2] = [Object.keys(o1), Object.keys(o2)];
  const [first, next] = k1.length > k2.length ? [k2, o1] : [k1, o2];
  return first.filter(k => k in next);
}

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(intersect(a, b)) + '</pre>');

Answer 3

The procedure i will suggest is:

1. Get the array of keys using Object.keys() for one of the objects.
2. Find the intersection the array using .filter and checking if the second object contains a key matching the first array.

var firstObject = {
  x: 0,
  y: 1,
  z: 2,

  a: 10,
  b: 20,
  e: 30
}

var secondObject = {
  x: 0,
  y: 1,
  z: 2,

  a: 10,
  c: 20,
  d: 30
}

function getIntKeys(obj1, obj2){

    var k1 = Object.keys(obj1);
    return k1.filter(function(x){
        return obj2[x] !== undefined;
    });
  
}

alert(getIntKeys(firstObject, secondObject));

Answer 4

Recursive function

This is other solution, maybe help you. I used a recursive function to intercept two objects. The advantage of this solution is that you not need worry about attributes that are objects at same time.

In this case the function intercept attributes that exist in both objects and asign the value of 'objSource' like final value of attribute intercepeted.

{
        function interceptObjects(objSource, objInterface) {
            let newObj = {};
            for (const key in objSource) {
                if (objInterface.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
                    // in javascript an array is a object too.
                    if (objSource[key] instanceof Object && !Array.isArray(objSource[key]) && objInterface[key] instanceof Object && !Array.isArray(objInterface[key])) {
                        newObj[key] = {};
                        newObj[key] = interceptObjects(objSource[key], objInterface[key])
                    } else {
                        newObj[key] = objSource[key];
                    }

                }
            }
            return newObj;
        }
        
        
        // FOR TESTING


    let objSource = {
            attr1: '',
            attr2: 2,
            attr3: [],
            attr4: {
                attr41: 'lol',
                attr42: 12,
                attr43: 15,
                attr45: [1, 4],
            },
            attr5: [2, 3, 4],
        };


        let objInterface = {
            attr1: null,
            attr4: {
                attr41: null,
                attr42: 12,
                attr45: [1],
            },
            attr5: [],
            attr6: null,
        };


        console.log(this.interceptObjects(objSource, objInterface));
    }

Answer 5

Here is a simple entry, very functional, handles any number of objects, and returns the values of the matching keys from the first object passed.

This behavior is similar to that of array_intersect_key() in PHP in case anyone is searching for that.

function intersectKeys(first, ...rest) {
    const restKeys = rest.map(o => Object.keys(o));
    return Object.fromEntries(Object.entries(first).filter(entry => restKeys.every(rk => rk.includes(entry[0]))));
}

Expanded here for better explanation and commenting

function intersectKeys(first, ...rest) {
    // extract the keys of the other objects first so that won't be done again for each check
    const restKeys = rest.map(o => Object.keys(o));
    // In my version I am returning the first objects values under the intersect keys
    return Object.fromEntries(
        // extract [key, value] sets for each key and filter them, Object.fromEntries() reverses this back into an object of the remaining fields after the filter
        Object.entries(first).filter(
            // make sure each of the other object key sets includes the current key, or filter it out
            entry => restKeys.every(
                rk => rk.includes(entry[0])
            )
        )
    );
    // to get JUST the keys as OP requested the second line would simplify down to this
    return Object.keys(first).filter(key => restKeys.every(rk => rk.includes(key)));
}

It's important to note that this solution only works on string keys, Symbol keys will be ignored and the final object will not contain any. Though a similar function could be written to compare Symbol intersect as well.