How to detect array equality in JavaScript?

Question

There are two arrays in JavaScript, they are both in the following format:

[{\'drink\':[\'alcohol\', \'soft\', \'hot\']}, {\'fruit\':[\'apple\', \'pear\']}];         


        

Answer 1

With Javascript, you can't check if arrays are equals, but you can compare them like this:

var arr1 = ['alcohol', 'soft', 'hot'],
    arr2 = ['apple', 'pear'],
    arr3 = ['soft', 'hot', 'alcohol'];

function isSame(a1, a2){
    return !(a1.sort() > a2.sort() || a1.sort() < a2.sort());
}

console.log( isSame(arr1, arr2) ); //false
console.log( isSame(arr1, arr3) ); //true

The sort put all elements in the same order, and if both < and > comparisons are false it means both are the same.