broken brain - not coldbox specific

Communities ColdBox HMVC
1

Hey guys,

My brain is broken today… this isn’t coldbox related, just a pure coldfusion thing.

how would I code to convert a collection of distinct arrays into an array of the “available combinations” of the distinct arrays…

Given I’m terrible at explaining things - an example perhaps.

arrayOne = [“opt1_yes”,“opt1_no”];
arrayTwo = [“opt2_yes”,“opt2_no”];

code to produce this expectedArray = [
[arrayOne[1],arrayTwo[1]],
[arrayOne[1],arrayTwo[2]],
[arrayOne[2],arrayTwo[2]],
[arrayOne[2],arrayTwo[1]]
];

which would also handle a varying amount of arrays and array values…

I’m sure I need to recurse… but it’s Thursday afternoon dead brain time methinks

any help appreciated. pseudo code 100% acceptable

Cheers
Steve

2

If I understand you correctly, this should help:

// Our result array
result = [];

// Simply merge all the arrays into one to simplify the next block of code
tempArray = [];

tempArray.addAll( arrayOne );

tempArray.addAll( arrayTwo );

// Now, produce our result ensuring that only one entry exists for each unique item
// This will prevent duplicates
for(item in tempArray)
if (!arrayContains(result,item) arrayAppend(result,item);

3

Thanks Aaron… I’ll give the merge idea a run

the end result (in english) should be every combination available between the two(or more) original arrays.

if the values are
[x,y]
[a,b]

then the desired result is
[x,a]
[x,b]
[y,a]
[y,b]

Maybe I’m overthinking it…

4

Is it not just:

arrayOne = [“opt1_yes”,“opt1_no”];
arrayTwo = [“opt2_yes”,“opt2_no”];

expectedArray = [];
for(itemA in arrayOne){
for(itemB in arrayTwo){
arrayAppend(expectedArray, [itemA, itemB]);
}
}

5

That works beautifully! and sooo elegant. thanks Nukes, owe you a (albeit virtual) beer

It needs to support any number of arrays with any number of array values, so I’ll need to massage it some.

thanks!

6

I just noticed it was for a dynamic number of arrays, that’s where it gets hard…

7

Yep.

At the moment I’m heading down the path of converting the values to an array of structs which contains the value coordinates:

[
{“value”=“opt1_yes”,“arrayPosition”=1,“valuePosition”=1},
{“value”=“opt1_no”,“arrayPosition”=1,“valuePosition”=2},

{“value”=“opt2_yes”,“arrayPosition”=2,“valuePosition”=1},

{“value”=“opt2_yes”,“arrayPosition”=2,“valuePosition”=2},

]

Not sure I’m helping the situation, but I think I’m heading in the right direction

thoughts?

at least using this I can skip values that exist in the same arrayPosition, as they should never be in a result array together…