Question

var arr1 = [12,'ss','sdd','sdd','kk'];
function unique(array){
  var o = {},b = [];
  for(var i=0;i<array.length;i++){
     if(!o[array[i]]){
       b.push(array[i]);
       o[array[i]] = true;
     }
  }
  return b;
}
unique(arr1) //It works fine .output [12,'ss','sdd','kk']

but,it has some issues on arr2 below:

var arr2 =  [12,'ss','sdd','sdd','kk','12'];//output [12,'ss','sdd','kk']

does it make wrong?I think it should output [12,’ss’,’sdd’,’kk’,’12’],can we fixed this promble?

Answer 1

Key names are always converted to a string. I recommend to use Array.prototype.indexOf in order to check whether an array entry is unique or not. The indexOf method also behaves correctly regarding objects^[1].

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/YE9jx/

function unique(array){
  var b = [];
  for(var i=0; i<array.length; i++){
     if(b.indexOf(array[i]) == -1) b.push(array[i]);
  }
  return b;
}

^[1] The correct behaviour is: Different if the object references are different:

var obj1 = [1,2];
var obj2 = [1,2];
unique([obj1, obj2]);  //[[1,2], [1,2]]  // Because they're different arrays
unique([obj1, obj1]);  //[[1,2]]         // Because both elements are obj1