No, it doesn't have one. For this reason most popular libraries come with one in their utility packages. Check out jQuery's inArray and Prototype's Array.indexOf for examples.
jQuery's implementation of it is as simple as you might expect:
function inArray(needle, haystack) {
var length = haystack.length;
for(var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if(haystack[i] == needle) return true;
}
return false;
}
If you are dealing with a sane amount of array elements the above will do the trick nicely.
EDIT: Whoops. I didn't even notice you wanted to see if an array was inside another. According to the PHP documentation this is the expected behavior of PHP's in_array:
$a = array(array('p', 'h'), array('p', 'r'), 'o');
if (in_array(array('p', 'h'), $a)) {
echo "'ph' was found\n";
}
if (in_array(array('f', 'i'), $a)) {
echo "'fi' was found\n";
}
if (in_array('o', $a)) {
echo "'o' was found\n";
}
// Output:
// 'ph' was found
// 'o' was found
The code posted by Chris and Alex does not follow this behavior. Alex's is the official version of Prototype's indexOf, and Chris's is more like PHP's array_intersect. This does what you want:
function arrayCompare(a1, a2) {
if (a1.length != a2.length) return false;
var length = a2.length;
for (var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (a1[i] !== a2[i]) return false;
}
return true;
}
function inArray(needle, haystack) {
var length = haystack.length;
for(var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if(typeof haystack[i] == 'object') {
if(arrayCompare(haystack[i], needle)) return true;
} else {
if(haystack[i] == needle) return true;
}
}
return false;
}
And this my test of the above on it:
var a = [['p','h'],['p','r'],'o'];
if(inArray(['p','h'], a)) {
alert('ph was found');
}
if(inArray(['f','i'], a)) {
alert('fi was found');
}
if(inArray('o', a)) {
alert('o was found');
}
// Results:
// alerts 'ph' was found
// alerts 'o' was found
Note that I intentionally did not extend the Array prototype as it is generally a bad idea to do so.
Answer from Paolo Bergantino on Stack OverflowNo, it doesn't have one. For this reason most popular libraries come with one in their utility packages. Check out jQuery's inArray and Prototype's Array.indexOf for examples.
jQuery's implementation of it is as simple as you might expect:
function inArray(needle, haystack) {
var length = haystack.length;
for(var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if(haystack[i] == needle) return true;
}
return false;
}
If you are dealing with a sane amount of array elements the above will do the trick nicely.
EDIT: Whoops. I didn't even notice you wanted to see if an array was inside another. According to the PHP documentation this is the expected behavior of PHP's in_array:
$a = array(array('p', 'h'), array('p', 'r'), 'o');
if (in_array(array('p', 'h'), $a)) {
echo "'ph' was found\n";
}
if (in_array(array('f', 'i'), $a)) {
echo "'fi' was found\n";
}
if (in_array('o', $a)) {
echo "'o' was found\n";
}
// Output:
// 'ph' was found
// 'o' was found
The code posted by Chris and Alex does not follow this behavior. Alex's is the official version of Prototype's indexOf, and Chris's is more like PHP's array_intersect. This does what you want:
function arrayCompare(a1, a2) {
if (a1.length != a2.length) return false;
var length = a2.length;
for (var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (a1[i] !== a2[i]) return false;
}
return true;
}
function inArray(needle, haystack) {
var length = haystack.length;
for(var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if(typeof haystack[i] == 'object') {
if(arrayCompare(haystack[i], needle)) return true;
} else {
if(haystack[i] == needle) return true;
}
}
return false;
}
And this my test of the above on it:
var a = [['p','h'],['p','r'],'o'];
if(inArray(['p','h'], a)) {
alert('ph was found');
}
if(inArray(['f','i'], a)) {
alert('fi was found');
}
if(inArray('o', a)) {
alert('o was found');
}
// Results:
// alerts 'ph' was found
// alerts 'o' was found
Note that I intentionally did not extend the Array prototype as it is generally a bad idea to do so.
There is now Array.prototype.includes:
The includes() method determines whether an array includes a certain element, returning true or false as appropriate.
var a = [1, 2, 3];
a.includes(2); // true
a.includes(4); // false
Syntax
arr.includes(searchElement)
arr.includes(searchElement, fromIndex)
Videos
Modern browsers have Array#includes, which does exactly that and is widely supported by everyone except IE:
console.log(['joe', 'jane', 'mary'].includes('jane')); // trueYou can also use Array#indexOf, which is less direct, but doesn't require polyfills for outdated browsers.
console.log(['joe', 'jane', 'mary'].indexOf('jane') >= 0); // trueMany frameworks also offer similar methods:
- jQuery:
$.inArray(value, array, [fromIndex]) - Underscore.js:
_.contains(array, value)(also aliased as_.includeand_.includes) - Dojo Toolkit:
dojo.indexOf(array, value, [fromIndex, findLast]) - Prototype:
array.indexOf(value) - MooTools:
array.indexOf(value) - MochiKit:
findValue(array, value) - MS Ajax:
array.indexOf(value) - Ext:
Ext.Array.contains(array, value) - Lodash:
_.includes(array, value, [from])(is_.containsprior 4.0.0) - Ramda:
R.includes(value, array)
Notice that some frameworks implement this as a function, while others add the function to the array prototype.
Update from 2019: This answer is from 2008 (11 years old!) and is not relevant for modern JS usage. The promised performance improvement was based on a benchmark done in browsers of that time. It might not be relevant to modern JS execution contexts. If you need an easy solution, look for other answers. If you need the best performance, benchmark for yourself in the relevant execution environments.
As others have said, the iteration through the array is probably the best way, but it has been proven that a decreasing while loop is the fastest way to iterate in JavaScript. So you may want to rewrite your code as follows:
function contains(a, obj) {
var i = a.length;
while (i--) {
if (a[i] === obj) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
Of course, you may as well extend Array prototype:
Array.prototype.contains = function(obj) {
var i = this.length;
while (i--) {
if (this[i] === obj) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
And now you can simply use the following:
alert([1, 2, 3].contains(2)); // => true
alert([1, 2, 3].contains('2')); // => false