Partitioning an array of objects into four arrays by one attribute

Question

I have an array of API objects, below is an example of one object:

{
    description: "Get a list of most recent social alerts"
    example_input: ""
    example_output: "status"
    id: 19
    method: "GET"
    resource: "/api/alerts"
}

With my code below, I'm able to loop through the big Array, then filter out items into 1 of 4 arrays (for GET, POST, PUT and DELETE)

RestFactory.getREST().then(function(res) {
    filterArrays(res.data.rest_methods);
});

function filterArrays(data) {
    for (var i=0; i<data.length; i++) {
        if (data[i].method === 'GET') {
            getArray.push(data[i]);
        }
        else if (data[i].method === 'POST') {
            postArray.push(data[i]);
        }
        else if (data[i].method === 'PUT') {
            putArray.push(data[i]);
        }
        else if (data[i].method === 'DELETE') {
            deleteArray.push(data[i]);
        }
    }
}

I feel that this is not the most efficient way to accomplish this, how should this be refactored? Would you recommend lodash in this scenario?

Answer 1

This can easily be done with array.reduce

let resultsByMethod = data.reduce((results, result) => {
  if(!results[result.method]) results[result.method] = [];
  results[result.method].push(result);
  return results;
}, {});

The end result is something like:

{
  GET: [...],
  POST: [...],
  PUT: [...],
  DELETE: [...]
}

One disadvantage in your approach is when it encounters a method that's note one of the 4 you're comparing.

Answer 2

Ended up with this, using _.each and a switch case:

function filterColumns(apis) {
    _.each(apis, function(api) {
        switch (api.method) {
            case 'GET'    : getArray.push(api);    break;
            case 'POST'   : postArray.push(api);   break;
            case 'PUT'    : putArray.push(api);    break;
            case 'DELETE' : deleteArray.push(api); break;
        }
    });
}

With the original for loop, each item had the possibility of being checked a maximum of 4 times.

Using _.each simplified the loop, making it much more readable.

Next using a switch case solves the problem of if statements having to be checked for multiple cases. The correct case will pass immediately using the switch case.