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"];

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"]
}

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

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

Now, let's add elm to index-2

const numberOfDeletedElm = 0;

input.splice(2, numberOfDeletedElm, elm);

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"]

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"];

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"];

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' ]

And it's well-tested:

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

Comments

[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.

[Jalal 🚀]

It works perfectly with tests

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

[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.

[Jalal 🚀]

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.