Hi !

Given the following sample items :

ID First name Age
xvZwiCpi Naomi 42
Nzd9UsGT Naomi 24
QiDXP2wA Thea 53
JpYeAY7H Jeremy 35

I can store these in an array :

const data = [
  { id: 'xvZwiCpi', firstName: 'Frederic', age: 42 },
  { id: 'Nzd9UsGT', firstName: 'Naomi', age: 24 },
  { id: 'QiDXP2wA', firstName: 'Thea', age: 53 },
  { id: 'JpYeAY7H', firstName: 'Mathew', age: 35 }
];

Thus access them the same way by ID :

console.log(data.find(item => item.id === 'xvZwiCpi'));

And by properties :

console.log(data.find(item => item.firstName === 'Frederic').id);

Or I can store these in an object :

const data = {
  'xvZwiCpi': { firstName: 'Frederic', age: 42 },
  'Nzd9UsGT': { firstName: 'Naomi', age: 24 },
  'QiDXP2wA': { firstName: 'Thea', age: 53 },
  'JpYeAY7H': { firstName: 'Mathew', age: 35 }
};

Thus more easily access properties by ID :

console.log(data['xvZwiCpi'].firstName);

But more hardly access ID by properties :

console.log(Object.entries(data).find(([id, item]) => item.firstName = 'Frederic')[0]);

I could duplicate IDs :

const data = {
  'xvZwiCpi': { id: 'xvZwiCpi', firstName: 'Frederic', age: 42 },
  'Nzd9UsGT': { id: 'Nzd9UsGT', firstName: 'Naomi', age: 24 },
  'QiDXP2wA': { id: 'QiDXP2wA', firstName: 'Thea', age: 53 },
  'JpYeAY7H': { id: 'JpYeAY7H', firstName: 'Mathew', age: 35 }
};

To slightly simplify that previous line :

console.log(Object.values(data).find(item => item.firstName = 'Frederic').id);

But what if a single variable type could allow doing both operations easily ?

console.log(data['xvZwiCpi'].firstName);
console.log(data.find(item => item.firstName === 'Frederic').id);

Does that exist ?

If not, I’m thinking about implementing it that way :

const data = new Proxy([
  { id: 'xvZwiCpi', firstName: 'Frederic', age: 42 },
  { id: 'Nzd9UsGT', firstName: 'Naomi', age: 24 },
  { id: 'QiDXP2wA', firstName: 'Thea', age: 53 },
  { id: 'JpYeAY7H', firstName: 'Mathew', age: 35 }
], {
    get: (array, property) =>
        array[property]
        ||
        array.find(item => item.id === property)
});

In which case I’d put it in a lib, but how would this be named ?

I’d also make a second implementation that would enforce ID uniqueness and use Map to map IDs with indexes instead of running find : while the first implementation would be fine for static data, the second one would be more suitable for dynamic data.

Would this make sense ?

Thanks

  • KaKi87@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    1 year ago

    You may have initially misunderstood my idea, but you did help.

    And I implemented it in the meantime, as a library named hybrid-array (after your suggestion).

    Not all transformative array methods have been checked yet, no unit testing nor comments have been written yet, no benchmarks have been performed yet, but these will happen.

    Thanks.