How can I do a shallow comparison of the properties of two objects with Javascript or lodash?

Simple ES6 approach:

const shallowCompare = (obj1, obj2) =>
  Object.keys(obj1).length === Object.keys(obj2).length &&
  Object.keys(obj1).every(key => obj1[key] === obj2[key]);

Here I added the object keys amount equality checking for the following comparison should fail (an important case that usually does not taken into the account):

shallowCompare({ x: 1, y: 3}, { x: 1, y: 3, a: 1}); // false

2019 Update. Per Andrew Rasmussen' comment we also need to take into account undefined case. The problem with the previous approach is that the following comparison returns true:

({ foo: undefined })['foo'] === ({ bar: undefined })['foo'] // true

So, explicit keys existence check is needed. And it could be done with hasOwnProperty:

const shallowCompare = (obj1, obj2) =>
  Object.keys(obj1).length === Object.keys(obj2).length &&
  Object.keys(obj1).every(key => 
    obj2.hasOwnProperty(key) && obj1[key] === obj2[key]
  );


function areEqualShallow(a, b) {
    for(var key in a) {
        if(!(key in b) || a[key] !== b[key]) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    for(var key in b) {
        if(!(key in a) || a[key] !== b[key]) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

Notes:

  • Since this is shallow, areEqualShallow({a:{}}, {a:{}}) is false.

  • areEqualShallow({a:undefined}, {}) is false.

  • This includes any properties from the prototype.

  • This uses === comparison. I assume that is what you want. NaN === NaN is one case that may yield unexpected results. If === is not what you want, substitute with the comparison you want.

EDIT: If the same keys are in each object, then 

function areEqualShallow(a, b) {
    for(var key in a) {
        if(a[key] !== b[key]) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

This is lifted from fbjs:

/**
 * Copyright (c) 2013-present, Facebook, Inc.
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * This source code is licensed under the BSD-style license found in the
 * LICENSE file in the root directory of this source tree. An additional grant
 * of patent rights can be found in the PATENTS file in the same directory.
 *
 * @typechecks
 *
 */

/*eslint-disable no-self-compare */

'use strict';

var hasOwnProperty = Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty;

/**
 * inlined Object.is polyfill to avoid requiring consumers ship their own
 * https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/is
 */
function is(x, y) {
    // SameValue algorithm
    if (x === y) {
        // Steps 1-5, 7-10
        // Steps 6.b-6.e: +0 != -0
        return x !== 0 || 1 / x === 1 / y;
    } else {
        // Step 6.a: NaN == NaN
        return x !== x && y !== y;
    }
}

/**
 * Performs equality by iterating through keys on an object and returning false
 * when any key has values which are not strictly equal between the arguments.
 * Returns true when the values of all keys are strictly equal.
 */
function shallowEqual(objA, objB) {
    if (is(objA, objB)) {
        return true;
    }

    if (typeof objA !== 'object' || objA === null || typeof objB !== 'object' || objB === null) {
        return false;
    }

    var keysA = Object.keys(objA);
    var keysB = Object.keys(objB);

    if (keysA.length !== keysB.length) {
        return false;
    }

    // Test for A's keys different from B.
    for (var i = 0; i < keysA.length; i++) {
        if (!hasOwnProperty.call(objB, keysA[i]) || !is(objA[keysA[i]], objB[keysA[i]])) {
            return false;
        }
    }

    return true;
}

module.exports = shallowEqual;

I recommend copying it into your own project if you need to use it, as their README clearly states that they may remove or modify this and any other code in the lib without warning.

Tags:

Javascript

Object Comparison

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