Generic deep diff between two objects

I wrote a little class that is doing what you want, you can test it here.

Only thing that is different from your proposal is that I don't consider

[1,[{c: 1},2,3],{a:'hey'}]

and

[{a:'hey'},1,[3,{c: 1},2]]

to be same, because I think that arrays are not equal if order of their elements is not same. Of course this can be changed if needed. Also this code can be further enhanced to take function as argument that will be used to format diff object in arbitrary way based on passed primitive values (now this job is done by "compareValues" method).

var deepDiffMapper = function () {
  return {
    VALUE_CREATED: 'created',
    VALUE_UPDATED: 'updated',
    VALUE_DELETED: 'deleted',
    VALUE_UNCHANGED: 'unchanged',
    map: function(obj1, obj2) {
      if (this.isFunction(obj1) || this.isFunction(obj2)) {
        throw 'Invalid argument. Function given, object expected.';
      }
      if (this.isValue(obj1) || this.isValue(obj2)) {
        return {
          type: this.compareValues(obj1, obj2),
          data: obj1 === undefined ? obj2 : obj1
        };
      }

      var diff = {};
      for (var key in obj1) {
        if (this.isFunction(obj1[key])) {
          continue;
        }

        var value2 = undefined;
        if (obj2[key] !== undefined) {
          value2 = obj2[key];
        }

        diff[key] = this.map(obj1[key], value2);
      }
      for (var key in obj2) {
        if (this.isFunction(obj2[key]) || diff[key] !== undefined) {
          continue;
        }

        diff[key] = this.map(undefined, obj2[key]);
      }

      return diff;

    },
    compareValues: function (value1, value2) {
      if (value1 === value2) {
        return this.VALUE_UNCHANGED;
      }
      if (this.isDate(value1) && this.isDate(value2) && value1.getTime() === value2.getTime()) {
        return this.VALUE_UNCHANGED;
      }
      if (value1 === undefined) {
        return this.VALUE_CREATED;
      }
      if (value2 === undefined) {
        return this.VALUE_DELETED;
      }
      return this.VALUE_UPDATED;
    },
    isFunction: function (x) {
      return Object.prototype.toString.call(x) === '[object Function]';
    },
    isArray: function (x) {
      return Object.prototype.toString.call(x) === '[object Array]';
    },
    isDate: function (x) {
      return Object.prototype.toString.call(x) === '[object Date]';
    },
    isObject: function (x) {
      return Object.prototype.toString.call(x) === '[object Object]';
    },
    isValue: function (x) {
      return !this.isObject(x) && !this.isArray(x);
    }
  }
}();


var result = deepDiffMapper.map({
  a: 'i am unchanged',
  b: 'i am deleted',
  e: {
    a: 1,
    b: false,
    c: null
  },
  f: [1, {
    a: 'same',
    b: [{
      a: 'same'
    }, {
      d: 'delete'
    }]
  }],
  g: new Date('2017.11.25')
}, {
  a: 'i am unchanged',
  c: 'i am created',
  e: {
    a: '1',
    b: '',
    d: 'created'
  },
  f: [{
    a: 'same',
    b: [{
      a: 'same'
    }, {
      c: 'create'
    }]
  }, 1],
  g: new Date('2017.11.25')
});
console.log(result);

I'd like to offer an ES6 solution...This is a one-way diff, meaning that it will return keys/values from o2 that are not identical to their counterparts in o1:

let o1 = {
  one: 1,
  two: 2,
  three: 3
}

let o2 = {
  two: 2,
  three: 3,
  four: 4
}

let diff = Object.keys(o2).reduce((diff, key) => {
  if (o1[key] === o2[key]) return diff
  return {
    ...diff,
    [key]: o2[key]
  }
}, {})

Using Underscore, a simple diff:

var o1 = {a: 1, b: 2, c: 2},
    o2 = {a: 2, b: 1, c: 2};

_.omit(o1, function(v,k) { return o2[k] === v; })

Results in the parts of o1 that correspond but with different values in o2:

{a: 1, b: 2}

It'd be different for a deep diff:

function diff(a,b) {
    var r = {};
    _.each(a, function(v,k) {
        if(b[k] === v) return;
        // but what if it returns an empty object? still attach?
        r[k] = _.isObject(v)
                ? _.diff(v, b[k])
                : v
            ;
        });
    return r;
}

As pointed out by @Juhana in the comments, the above is only a diff a-->b and not reversible (meaning extra properties in b would be ignored). Use instead a-->b-->a:

(function(_) {
  function deepDiff(a, b, r) {
    _.each(a, function(v, k) {
      // already checked this or equal...
      if (r.hasOwnProperty(k) || b[k] === v) return;
      // but what if it returns an empty object? still attach?
      r[k] = _.isObject(v) ? _.diff(v, b[k]) : v;
    });
  }

  /* the function */
  _.mixin({
    diff: function(a, b) {
      var r = {};
      deepDiff(a, b, r);
      deepDiff(b, a, r);
      return r;
    }
  });
})(_.noConflict());

See http://jsfiddle.net/drzaus/9g5qoxwj/ for full example+tests+mixins


Using Lodash:

_.mergeWith(oldObj, newObj, function (objectValue, sourceValue, key, object, source) {
    if ( !(_.isEqual(objectValue, sourceValue)) && (Object(objectValue) !== objectValue)) {
        console.log(key + "\n    Expected: " + sourceValue + "\n    Actual: " + objectValue);
    }
});

I don't use key/object/source but I left it in there if you need to access them. The object comparison just prevents the console from printing the differences to the console from the outermost element to the innermost element.

You can add some logic inside to handle arrays. Perhaps sort the arrays first. This is a very flexible solution.

EDIT

Changed from _.merge to _.mergeWith due to lodash update. Thanks Aviron for noticing the change.

Tags:

Javascript

Object

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