DEV Community

Cover image for Moving Element In An Array From Index To Another
Jalal 🚀
Jalal 🚀

Posted on

Moving Element In An Array From Index To Another

I was working on a project when I faced an unprecedented and obvious issue. How do I suppose to move an element in an array form one position to another?

My goal is to move an element in index-0 to index-2. Something like this:

const input = ["a", "b", "c"];

const expected = ["b", "c", "a"];
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The simplest way, using splice() which gives me the ability to add and remove elements in an array.

First, let's delete element in index-0:

function move(input, from) {
  const numberOfDeletedElm = 1;

  // delete one element only, in index-from
  const arrDeletedElem = input.splice(from, numberOfDeletedElm);

  // ["a"]=["a", "b", "c"].splice(0, 1);

  // and input array is ["b", "c"]
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

But, I don't need an array, I only need the content of the arrDeletedElem.

const elm = input.splice(from, numberOfDeletedElm)[0];
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now, let's add elm to index-2

const numberOfDeletedElm = 0;

input.splice(2, numberOfDeletedElm, elm);
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And our move function well be:

function move(input, from, to) {
  let numberOfDeletedElm = 1;

  const elm = input.splice(from, numberOfDeletedElm)[0];

  numberOfDeletedElm = 0;

  input.splice(to, numberOfDeletedElm, elm);
}

// move(["a", "b", "c"], 0, 2) >> ["b", "c", "a"]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Of course, this can go deeper, that's why I created move-position. Which contains utility functions for moving index in an array.

Since releasing V1, move-position can deal with the following cases:

1- Moving one element form/to index using: move.

const input = ["a", "b", "c"];

// move element form index=0, to index=2
const result = move(input, 0, 2);

// ["b", "c", "a"];
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

2- Moves the same form/to index in multiple arrays using: moveMultiArr.

const input1 = ["a1", "b1", "c1"];
const input2 = ["a2", "b2", "c2"];

const inputs = [input1, input2];

const result = moveMultiArr(inputs, 2, 0);

// result[0] > ["c1", "a1", "b1"];
// result[1] > ["c2", "a2", "b2"];
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

3- Moves multiple indexes in the same array using: moveMultiIndex.

const input = ["a", "b", "c"];

const movingMap = [
  { from: 0, to: 2 },
  { from: 2, to: 1 }
];

const result = moveMultiIndex(input, movingMap);

// result > [ 'a', 'c', 'a' ]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And it's well-tested:

test-result


Do you like it? Please leave a ⭐️. I appreciate any feedback or PRs 👋👋👋

Top comments (4)

Collapse
 
greggcbs profile image
GreggHume

Your move function doesnt return anything.
Which means its mutating the array directly or your code doesnt work.

Either way you will need to fix it.

Collapse
 
jalal246 profile image
Jalal 🚀

It works perfectly with tests

github.com/jalal246/move-position/...

Collapse
 
quixomatic profile image
James Freund

I think they just meant that you shouldn't mutate the original array/object directly. Best practice would be to return a new array with the correctly arranged elements within it.

Would be a minor code change, and would be more widely accepted since you should never mutate original data in a black box style function call.

Thread Thread
 
jalal246 profile image
Jalal 🚀 • Edited

It's optional just pass {isMutate: false} and it won't mutate: github.com/jalal246/move-position#....

since you should never mutate original data

It depends. 1-The scale of your data 2-Data mutation frequency 3-Data reference type.