How can I get a unique array based on object property using underscore

Question

I have an array of objects and I want to get a new array from it that is unique based only on a single property, is there a simple way to achieve this?

Eg.

Answer 1

Use the uniq function

var destArray = _.uniq(sourceArray, function(x){
    return x.name;
});

or single-line version

var destArray = _.uniq(sourceArray, x => x.name);

From the docs:

Produces a duplicate-free version of the array, using === to test object equality. If you know in advance that the array is sorted, passing true for isSorted will run a much faster algorithm. If you want to compute unique items based on a transformation, pass an iterator function.

In the above example, the function uses the objects name in order to determine uniqueness.

Answer 2

I was looking for a solution which didn't require a library, and put this together, so I thought I'd add it here. It may not be ideal, or working in all situations, but it's doing what I require, so could potentially help someone else:

const uniqueBy = (items, reducer, dupeCheck = [], currentResults = []) => {
  if (!items || items.length === 0) return currentResults;
  
  const thisValue = reducer(items[0]);
  
  const resultsToPass = dupeCheck.indexOf(thisValue) === -1 ?
    [...currentResults, items[0]] : currentResults;
    
  return uniqueBy(
    items.slice(1),
    reducer,
    [...dupeCheck, thisValue],
    resultsToPass,
  );    
}

const testData = [
  {text: 'hello', image: 'yes'},
  {text: 'he'},
  {text: 'hello'},
  {text: 'hell'},
  {text: 'hello'},
  {text: 'hellop'},
];

const results = uniqueBy(
  testData,
  item => {
    return item.text
  },
)

console.dir(results)