Javascript algorithm to find elements in array that are not in another array

Question

I\'m looking for a good algorithm to get all the elements in one array that are not elements in another array. So given these arrays:

var x = [\"a\",\"b\",\         


        

Answer 1

Make sorted copies of the arrays first. If the top elements are equal, remove them both. Otherwise remove the element that is less and add it to your result array. If one array is empty, then add the rest of the other array to the result and finish. You can iterate through the sorted arrays instead of removing elements.

// assume x and y are sorted
xi = 0; yi = 0; xc = x.length; yc = y.length;
while ( xi < xc && yi < yc ) {
  if ( x[xi] == y[yi] ) {
    xi += 1;
    yi += 1;
  } else if ( x[xi] < y[yi] ) {
    z.push( x[xi] );
    xi += 1;
  } else {
    z.push( y[yi] );
    yi += 1;
  }
}
// add remainder of x and y to z.  one or both will be empty.