Getting a union of two arrays in JavaScript

Say I have an array of [34, 35, 45, 48, 49] and another array of [48, 55]. How can I get a resulting array of [34, 35, 45, 48, 49, 55]?

With the arrival of ES6 with sets and splat operator (at the time of being works only in Firefox, check compatibility table), you can write the following cryptic one liner:

var a = [34, 35, 45, 48, 49];
var b = [48, 55];
var union = [...new Set([...a, ...b])];
console.log(union);

Little explanation about this line: [...a, ...b] concatenates two arrays, you can use a.concat(b) as well. new Set() create a set out of it and thus your union. And the last [...x] converts it back to an array.

If you don't need to keep the order, and consider 45 and "45" to be the same:

function union_arrays (x, y) {
  var obj = {};
  for (var i = x.length-1; i >= 0; -- i)
     obj[x[i]] = x[i];
  for (var i = y.length-1; i >= 0; -- i)
     obj[y[i]] = y[i];
  var res = []
  for (var k in obj) {
    if (obj.hasOwnProperty(k))  // <-- optional
      res.push(obj[k]);
  }
  return res;
}

console.log(union_arrays([34,35,45,48,49], [44,55]));

If you use the library underscore you can write like this

var unionArr = _.union([34,35,45,48,49], [48,55]);
console.log(unionArr);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.9.1/underscore-min.js"></script>

Ref: http://underscorejs.org/#union

I'm probably wasting time on a dead thread here. I just had to implement this and went looking to see if I was wasting my time.

I really like KennyTM's answer. That's just how I would attack the problem. Merge the keys into a hash to naturally eliminate duplicates and then extract the keys. If you actually have jQuery you can leverage its goodies to make this a 2 line problem and then roll it into an extension. The each() in jQuery will take care of not iterating over items where hasOwnProperty() is false.

jQuery.fn.extend({
    union: function(array1, array2) {
        var hash = {}, union = [];
        $.each($.merge($.merge([], array1), array2), function (index, value) { hash[value] = value; });
        $.each(hash, function (key, value) { union.push(key); } );
        return union;
    }
});

Note that both of the original arrays are left intact. Then you call it like this:

var union = $.union(array1, array2);

function unique(arrayName)
{
  var newArray=new Array();
  label: for(var i=0; i<arrayName.length;i++ )
  {  
    for(var j=0; j<newArray.length;j++ )
    {
      if(newArray[j]==arrayName[i]) 
        continue label;
    }
    newArray[newArray.length] = arrayName[i];
  }
  return newArray;
}

var arr1 = new Array(0,2,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,6,6,6,7,7,8,9,5,1,2,3,0);
var arr2= new Array(3,5,8,1,2,32,1,2,1,2,4,7,8,9,1,2,1,2,3,4,5);
var union = unique(arr1.concat(arr2));
console.log(union);

If you wants to concatenate two arrays without any duplicate value,Just try this

var a=[34, 35, 45, 48, 49];
var b=[48, 55];
var c=a.concat(b).sort();
var res=c.filter((value,pos) => {return c.indexOf(value) == pos;} );

Adapted from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4026828/1830259

Array.prototype.union = function(a) 
{
    var r = this.slice(0);
    a.forEach(function(i) { if (r.indexOf(i) < 0) r.push(i); });
    return r;
};

Array.prototype.diff = function(a)
{
    return this.filter(function(i) {return a.indexOf(i) < 0;});
};

var s1 = [1, 2, 3, 4];
var s2 = [3, 4, 5, 6];

console.log("s1: " + s1);
console.log("s2: " + s2);
console.log("s1.union(s2): " + s1.union(s2));
console.log("s2.union(s1): " + s2.union(s1));
console.log("s1.diff(s2): " + s1.diff(s2));
console.log("s2.diff(s1): " + s2.diff(s1));

// Output:
// s1: 1,2,3,4
// s2: 3,4,5,6
// s1.union(s2): 1,2,3,4,5,6
// s2.union(s1): 3,4,5,6,1,2
// s1.diff(s2): 1,2
// s2.diff(s1): 5,6 

I like Peter Ajtai's concat-then-unique solution, but the code's not very clear. Here's a nicer alternative:

function unique(x) {
  return x.filter(function(elem, index) { return x.indexOf(elem) === index; });
};
function union(x, y) {
  return unique(x.concat(y));
};

Since indexOf returns the index of the first occurence, we check this against the current element's index (the second parameter to the filter predicate).

You can use a jQuery plugin: jQuery Array Utilities

For example the code below

$.union([1, 2, 2, 3], [2, 3, 4, 5, 5])

will return [1,2,3,4,5]

Shorter version of kennytm's answer:

function unionArrays(a, b) {
    const cache = {};

    a.forEach(item => cache[item] = item);
    b.forEach(item => cache[item] = item);

    return Object.keys(cache).map(key => cache[key]);
};

I would first concatenate the arrays, then I would return only the unique value.

You have to create your own function to return unique values. Since it is a useful function, you might as well add it in as a functionality of the Array.

In your case with arrays array1 and array2 it would look like this:

1. array1.concat(array2) - concatenate the two arrays
2. array1.concat(array2).unique() - return only the unique values. Here unique() is a method you added to the prototype for Array.

The whole thing would look like this:

Array.prototype.unique = function () {
    var r = new Array();
    o: for(var i = 0, n = this.length; i < n; i++)
    {
        for(var x = 0, y = r.length; x < y; x++)
        {
            if(r[x]==this[i])
            {
                continue o;
            }
        }
        r[r.length] = this[i];
    }
    return r;
}
var array1 = [34,35,45,48,49];
var array2 = [34,35,45,48,49,55];

// concatenate the arrays then return only the unique values
console.log(array1.concat(array2).unique());

function unionArray(arrayA, arrayB) {
  var obj = {},
      i = arrayA.length,
      j = arrayB.length,
      newArray = [];
  while (i--) {
    if (!(arrayA[i] in obj)) {
      obj[arrayA[i]] = true;
      newArray.push(arrayA[i]);
    }
  }
  while (j--) {
    if (!(arrayB[j] in obj)) {
      obj[arrayB[j]] = true;
      newArray.push(arrayB[j]);
    }
  }
  return newArray;
}
var unionArr = unionArray([34, 35, 45, 48, 49], [44, 55]);
console.log(unionArr);

Faster http://jsperf.com/union-array-faster

function unionArrays() {
    var args = arguments,
    l = args.length,
    obj = {},
    res = [],
    i, j, k;

    while (l--) {
        k = args[l];
        i = k.length;

        while (i--) {
            j = k[i];
            if (!obj[j]) {
                obj[j] = 1;
                res.push(j);
            }
        }   
    }

    return res;
}
var unionArr = unionArrays([34, 35, 45, 48, 49], [44, 55]);
console.log(unionArr);

Somewhat similar in approach to alejandro's method, but a little shorter and should work with any number of arrays.

function unite(arr1, arr2, arr3) {
 newArr=arr1.concat(arr2).concat(arr3);

 a=newArr.filter(function(value){
   return !arr1.some(function(value2){
      return value == value2;
   });
 });

console.log(arr1.concat(a));

}//This is for Sorted union following the order :)

Just wrote before for the same reason (works with any amount of arrays):

/**
 * Returns with the union of the given arrays.
 *
 * @param Any amount of arrays to be united.
 * @returns {array} The union array.
 */
function uniteArrays()
{
    var union = [];
    for (var argumentIndex = 0; argumentIndex < arguments.length; argumentIndex++)
    {
        eachArgument = arguments[argumentIndex];
        if (typeof eachArgument !== 'array')
        {
            eachArray = eachArgument;
            for (var index = 0; index < eachArray.length; index++)
            {
                eachValue = eachArray[index];
                if (arrayHasValue(union, eachValue) == false)
                union.push(eachValue);
            }
        }
    }

    return union;
}    

function arrayHasValue(array, value)
{ return array.indexOf(value) != -1; }

Simple way to deal with merging single array values.

var values[0] = {"id":1235,"name":"value 1"}
values[1] = {"id":4323,"name":"value 2"}

var object=null;
var first=values[0];
for (var i in values) 
 if(i>0)	
 object= $.merge(values[i],first)

You can try these:

function union(a, b) {
    return a.concat(b).reduce(function(prev, cur) {
        if (prev.indexOf(cur) === -1) prev.push(cur);
        return prev;
    }, []);    
}

or

function union(a, b) {
    return a.concat(b.filter(function(el) {
        return a.indexOf(el) === -1;
    }));
}

ES2015 version

Array.prototype.diff = function(a) {return this.filter(i => a.indexOf(i) < 0)};

Array.prototype.union = function(a) {return [...this.diff(a), ...a]}

If you want a custom equals function to match your elements, you can use this function in ES2015:

function unionEquals(left, right, equals){
    return left.concat(right).reduce( (acc,element) => {
        return acc.some(elt => equals(elt, element))? acc : acc.concat(element)
    }, []);
}

It traverses the left+right array. Then for each element, will fill the accumulator if it does not find that element in the accumulator. At the end, there are no duplicate as specified by the equals function.

Pretty, but probably not very efficient with thousands of objects.

I think it would be simplest to create a new array, adding the unique values only as determined by indexOf.

This seems to me to be the most straightforward solution, though I don't know if it is the most efficient. Collation is not preserved.

var a = [34, 35, 45, 48, 49],
    b = [48, 55];

var c = union(a, b);

function union(a, b) { // will work for n >= 2 inputs
    var newArray = [];

    //cycle through input arrays
    for (var i = 0, l = arguments.length; i < l; i++) {

        //cycle through each input arrays elements
        var array = arguments[i];
        for (var ii = 0, ll = array.length; ii < ll; ii++) {
            var val = array[ii];

            //only add elements to the new array if they are unique
            if (newArray.indexOf(val) < 0) newArray.push(val);
        }
    }
    return newArray;
}

[i for( i of new Set(array1.concat(array2)))]

Let me break this into parts for you

// This is a list by comprehension
// Store each result in an element of the array
[i
// will be placed in the variable "i", for each element of...
	for( i of
	// ... the Set which is made of...
			new Set(
				// ...the concatenation of both arrays
				array1.concat(array2)
			)
	)
]

In other words, it first concatenates both and then it removes the duplicates (a Set, by definition cannot have duplicates)

Do note, though, that the order of the elements is not guaranteed, in this case.