Awesome
proposal-array-find-from-last
Proposal for .findLast()
and .findLastIndex()
methods on array and typed array.
Status
This is a stage 4 proposal.
Motivation
Finding an element in an array is a very common programming pattern.
The proposal has a major concerns: Semantical. Which means clearly representing the operation i want
.
And with the changes. There's a sugar here: Performance. Avoid obvious overhead. And may improve the constant factors in the time complexity. Even there's not an order of magnitude change. But it's may useful in some performance-sensitive scenarios. eg: React render function.
ECMAScript currently supports {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.indexOf
and {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.lastIndexOf
to find an index of some value
in the array.
There is also {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.find
and {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.findIndex
to find an element or its index in the array that satisfies a provided condition.
However, the language does not provide a method to find an element from the last to the first of an array with a condition function.
[...[]].reverse().find()
is a workaround but there are two issues:
- unnecessary mutation (by reverse).
- unnecessary copy (to avoid mutation)
For .findIndex()
, you are required to perform additional steps after calling the method (re-calculate the index and handle the -1
) to calculate the result of [...arr].reverse().findIndex()
.
Therefore there is a third issue:
- complex index calculation
So, perhaps we need something directly and effectively. In this proposal, they are {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.findLast
and {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.findLastIndex
.
Scenarios
- You know find from last may have better performance (The target element on the tail of the array, could append with
push
orconcat
in a queue or stack, eg: recently matched time point in a timeline). - You care about the order of the elements (May have duplicate item in the array, eg: last odd in the list of numbers).
- Etc.
Core features
Add {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.findLast
and {Array, %TypedArray%}.prototype.findLastIndex
.
This would behave the same as Array.prototype.find and Array.prototype.findIndex but would iterate from the last to the first.
eg:
const array = [{ value: 1 }, { value: 2 }, { value: 3 }, { value: 4 }];
array.find(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // { value: 1 }
array.findIndex(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // 0
// ======== Before the proposal ===========
// find
[...array].reverse().find(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // { value: 3 }
// findIndex
array.length - 1 - [...array].reverse().findIndex(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // 2
array.length - 1 - [...array].reverse().findIndex(n => n.value === 42); // should be -1, but 4
// ======== In the proposal ===========
// find
array.findLast(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // { value: 3 }
// findIndex
array.findLastIndex(n => n.value % 2 === 1); // 2
array.findLastIndex(n => n.value === 42); // -1
Slides
- For stage 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nzO9cjy4YlRa8h6ntTJ4Is8mx--sTuL_/view
- For stage 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rhER8TZ5GsHDzl8nLvo8qSIQCUXPw3AQ/view
- For stage 3: https://kingwl.github.io/proposal-array-find-from-last-looking-for-stage-3-sides
- For stage 4: https://github.com/DanielRosenwasser/findLast-and-findLastIndex-for-Stage-4/blob/10cfbc10e155641e3260c68c4d5902ee28de116a/findLast%20%26%20findLastIndex%20for%20Stage%204%20(TC39%20June%202022).pdf
Polyfill
- core-js: you can find it in the ECMAScript proposals section
- es-shims: array.prototype.findlast / array.prototype.findlastindex
Related
- lodash.findLast
- lodash.findLastIndex
- ramda.findLast
- ramda.findLastIndex
- TypeScript internal findLast
- TypeScript internal findLastIndex
- @extra-array/find-right
Proposer
Champions:
- @Kingwl (Wenlu Wang, KWL)
- @DanielRosenwasser (Daniel Rosenwasser, DRR)