Deep Equality Javascript Data Structures

A drop-in replacement for ES native Map and Set with deep equality support for objects.

Install

npm install deep-equality-data-structures

Why?

ES Map and Set only support referential equality:

interface MyType {
    a: number;
}
const set = new Set<MyType>();
set.add({ a: 1 });
set.add({ a: 1 });
set.size; // 2

Now, using deep equality:

import { DeepSet } from 'deep-equality-data-structures';

interface MyType {
    a: number;
}
const set = new DeepSet<MyType>();
set.add({ a: 1 });
set.add({ a: 1 });
set.size; // 1

How?

This project relies on the object-hash library to normalize object types to unique strings.

Comparable Interface

The following supplemental comparisons/methods are included:

• equals
• contains
• union
• intersection
• difference

// COMPARISONS
const set1 = new DeepSet([{ a: 1 }, { b: 2 }]);
const set2 = new DeepSet([{ b: 2 }, { a: 1 }]);
set1.equals(set2); // true

const set3 = new DeepSet([{ a: 1 }]);
set1.equals(set3); // false
set1.contains(set3); // true

// SET OPERATIONS (available for maps, too)
const set3 = new DeepSet([{ a: 1 }, { b: 2 }]);
const set4 = new DeepSet([{ b: 2 }, { c: 3 }]);
set3.union(set4); // DeepSet([{ a: 1 }, { b: 2 }, { c: 3 }])
set3.intersection(set4); // DeepSet([{ b: 2 }])
set3.difference(set4); // DeepSet([{ a: 1 }])

Configuration Options

The default settings should be suitable for most use cases, but behavior can be configured.

new DeepSet<V>(values?, options?)
new DeepMap<K,V>(entries?, options?)

The options argument is a superset of the options defined for object-hash, with the same defaults (exception: the default algoritm is md5). There are also library-specific options.

Library-specific options:

• transformer - a custom function that transforms Map keys/Set values prior to hashing. It does not affect the values that are stored.

  type MyType = { val: number; other: number };
  const a: MyType = { val: 1, other: 1 };
  const b: MyType = { val: 1, other: 2 };
  const transformer = (obj: MyType) => ({ val: obj.val });
  
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b]);
  set.size; // 2
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b], { transformer });
  set.size; // 1
  
  [...set.values()]; // [{ val: 1, other: 2 }]

• mapValueTransformer - a custom function that transforms Map values prior to hashing. This is only relevant to the .equals/.contains operations from the Comparable interface, as well as the Bi-Directional DeepMap. It does not affect the values that are stored.

  type MyType = { val: number; other: number };
  const a: MyType = { val: 1, other: 1 };
  const b: MyType = { val: 1, other: 2 };
  const mapValueTransformer = (obj: MyType) => ({ val: obj.val });
  
  const map1 = new DeepMap([[1, a]]);
  const map2 = new DeepMap([[1, b]]);
  map1.equals(map2); // false
  
  const map1 = new DeepMap([[1, a]], { mapValueTransformer });
  const map2 = new DeepMap([[1, b]], { mapValueTransformer });
  map1.equals(map2); // true
  
  [...map1.entries()]; // [[1, { val: 1, other: 1 }]]
  [...map2.entries()]; // [[1, { val: 1, other: 2 }]]

• useToJsonTransform - if true, only use JSON-serializable properties when computing hashes, equality, etc. (default: false)

  NOTE: This transform will always be applied BEFORE transformer and mapValueTransformer, if applicable.

  class A {
      constructor(public x: number) {}
  }
  class B {
      constructor(public x: number) {}
  }
  const a = new A(45);
  const b = new B(45);
  
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b]);
  set.size; // 2
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b], { useToJsonTransform: true });
  set.size; // 1

• caseInsensitive - If true, all string values--including keys/values within objects and arrays--will be evaluated as case-insensitive. (default: false)

  NOTE: This transform will always be applied AFTER transformer and mapValueTransformer, if applicable. For objects, it will be applied before replacer (from object-hash options).

  const a = { key: 'value' };
  const b = { key: 'VALUE' };
  
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b]);
  set.size; // 2
  const set = new DeepSet([a, b], { caseInsensitive: true });
  set.size; // 1

Bi-Directional DeepMap

This library also exposes a BiDirectionalDeepMap class, which supports O(1) lookups by both keys and values. It provides the following extended API:

• hasValue(val: V): boolean: Returns true if val exists as a value in the map
• getKeyByValue(val: V): K | undefined: Returns the key associated with val if it exists
• deleteByValue(val: V): boolean: Removes the key-value pair whose value is val and returns true if found

Caveats

Note that this "two-way" map has the traditional caveats:

• There is a ~2x memory footprint
• Keys and values must be 1-to-1, meaning each key must have a distinct value and vice versa. This implementation will error if attempting to set a key-value pair whose value is already present in the map with a different key.

Static Utility Methods

• areEqual(values, options?): Returns true if all elements in values are equal. This can be useful when you need to quickly test equality of more than 2 values, or when you want to specify an equality transform (via options.transformer).

Notes/Caveats

• This still supports primitive keys/values like traditional Map/Set.
• Don't mutate objects stored in the data structure. The internal representation is not affected by this mutation, so behavior may be unexpected.
• Don't mutate objects in the user-supplied transformer or mapValueTransformer functions. It will affect the stored version.
• This implementation does not explicitly "handle" key collisions. However, with the default algorithm (MD5), even if a map contained one TRILLION entries, the probability of a collision on the next insert is only 0.000000000000001. If you need better odds, use SHA1, SHA256, etc.

CI/CD

Using Github Actions, the CI build will run on all pull requests and pushes/merges to main.

This project uses Conventional Commits and standard-version to facilitate versioning and changelogs.