How to get distinct values from an array of objects in JavaScript?

Question

Assuming I have the following:

var array = 
    [
        {\"name\":\"Joe\", \"age\":17}, 
        {\"name\":\"Bob\", \"age\":17}, 
        {\"name\":\"Carl\         


        

Answer 1

Here's a versatile solution that uses reduce, allows for mapping, and maintains insertion order.

items: An array

mapper: A unary function that maps the item to the criteria, or empty to map the item itself.

function distinct(items, mapper) {
    if (!mapper) mapper = (item)=>item;
    return items.map(mapper).reduce((acc, item) => {
        if (acc.indexOf(item) === -1) acc.push(item);
        return acc;
    }, []);
}

Usage

const distinctLastNames = distinct(items, (item)=>item.lastName);
const distinctItems = distinct(items);

You can add this to your Array prototype and leave out the items parameter if that's your style...

const distinctLastNames = items.distinct( (item)=>item.lastName) ) ;
const distinctItems = items.distinct() ;

You can also use a Set instead of an Array to speed up the matching.

function distinct(items, mapper) {
    if (!mapper) mapper = (item)=>item;
    return items.map(mapper).reduce((acc, item) => {
        acc.add(item);
        return acc;
    }, new Set());
}