fast-equals

What is fast-equals?

The fast-equals package is a high-performance deep equality checking library that provides functions to determine if two values are deeply equal. It is optimized for speed and can handle complex data structures, including objects, arrays, dates, and more.

What are fast-equals's main functionalities?

deepEqual

Checks if two values are deeply equal, meaning all their nested properties are equal.

const { deepEqual } = require('fast-equals');
console.log(deepEqual({ foo: 'bar' }, { foo: 'bar' })); // true

shallowEqual

Checks if two values are shallowly equal, meaning their immediate properties are equal without checking nested objects.

const { shallowEqual } = require('fast-equals');
console.log(shallowEqual({ foo: 'bar' }, { foo: 'bar' })); // true

circularDeepEqual

Checks if two values are deeply equal, including when they have circular references.

const { circularDeepEqual } = require('fast-equals');
const objectA = { foo: 'bar' };
objectA.self = objectA;
const objectB = { foo: 'bar' };
objectB.self = objectB;
console.log(circularDeepEqual(objectA, objectB)); // true

circularShallowEqual

Checks if two values are shallowly equal, including when they have circular references.

const { circularShallowEqual } = require('fast-equals');
const arrayA = ['foo', 'bar'];
arrayA.push(arrayA);
const arrayB = ['foo', 'bar'];
arrayB.push(arrayB);
console.log(circularShallowEqual(arrayA, arrayB)); // true

sameValueZeroEqual

Checks if two values are equal according to the SameValueZero comparison algorithm, which treats NaN as equal to NaN and -0 as equal to +0.

const { sameValueZeroEqual } = require('fast-equals');
console.log(sameValueZeroEqual(NaN, NaN)); // true

Other packages similar to fast-equals

lodash.isequal

Lodash's isEqual function is a popular utility for performing deep equality checks. It is part of the larger Lodash library, which offers a wide range of utilities for working with arrays, objects, and other data types. Compared to fast-equals, lodash.isequal may be slower but is part of a well-established utility library with a large user base.

deep-equal

The deep-equal package provides functions for deep equality checking. It is less optimized for performance compared to fast-equals but offers a simple API for checking deep equality between two values.

ramda

Ramda is a functional programming library that includes a deep equality checking function called equals. Ramda's approach is more functional and immutable compared to fast-equals, and it is designed to work well in a functional programming context.

README

fast-equals

Perform blazing fast equality comparisons (either deep or shallow) on two objects passed. It has no dependencies, and is ~1.3kB when minified and gzipped.

Unlike most equality validation libraries, the following types are handled out-of-the-box:

• NaN
• Date objects
• RegExp objects
• Map / Set iterables
• Promise objects
• react elements

Starting with version 1.5.0, circular objects are supported for both deep and shallow equality (see circularDeepEqual and circularShallowEqual). You can also create a custom nested comparator, for specific scenarios (see below).

Table of contents

• Usage
• Available methods
  • deepEqual
  • shallowEqual
  • sameValueZeroEqual
  • circularDeepEqual
  • circularShallowEqual
  • createCustomEqual
• Benchmarks
• Development

Usage

You can either import the full object:

import fe from "fast-equals";

console.log(fe.deep({ foo: "bar" }, { foo: "bar" })); // true

Or the individual imports desired:

import { deepEqual } from "fast-equals";

console.log(deepEqual({ foo: "bar" }, { foo: "bar" })); // true

Available methods

deepEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.deep

Performs a deep equality comparison on the two objects passed and returns a boolean representing the value equivalency of the objects.

import { deepEqual } from "fast-equals";

const objectA = { foo: { bar: "baz" } };
const objectB = { foo: { bar: "baz" } };

console.log(objectA === objectB); // false
console.log(deepEqual(objectA, objectB)); // true

shallowEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.shallow

Performs a shallow equality comparison on the two objects passed and returns a boolean representing the value equivalency of the objects.

import { shallowEqual } from "fast-equals";

const nestedObject = { bar: "baz" };

const objectA = { foo: nestedObject };
const objectB = { foo: nestedObject };
const objectC = { foo: { bar: "baz" } };

console.log(objectA === objectB); // false
console.log(shallowEqual(objectA, objectB)); // true
console.log(shallowEqual(objectA, objectC)); // false

sameValueZeroEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.sameValueZero

Performs a SameValueZero comparison on the two objects passed and returns a boolean representing the value equivalency of the objects. In simple terms, this means either strictly equal or both NaN.

import { sameValueZeroEqual } from "fast-equals";

const mainObject = { foo: NaN, bar: "baz" };

const objectA = "baz";
const objectB = NaN;
const objectC = { foo: NaN, bar: "baz" };

console.log(sameValueZeroEqual(mainObject.bar, objectA)); // true
console.log(sameValueZeroEqual(mainObject.foo, objectB)); // true
console.log(sameValueZeroEqual(mainObject, objectC)); // false

circularDeepEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.circularDeep

Performs the same comparison as deepEqual but supports circular objects. It is slower than deepEqual, so only use if you know circular objects are present.

function Circular(value) {
  this.me = {
    deeply: {
      nested: {
        reference: this
      }
    },
    value
  };
}

console.log(circularDeepEqual(new Circular("foo"), new Circular("foo"))); // true
console.log(circularDeepEqual(new Circular("foo"), new Circular("bar"))); // false

circularShallowEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.circularShallow

Performs the same comparison as shallowequal but supports circular objects. It is slower than shallowEqual, so only use if you know circular objects are present.

const array = ["foo"];

array.push(array);

console.log(circularShallowEqual(array, ["foo", array])); // true
console.log(circularShallowEqual(array, [array])); // false

createCustomEqual

Aliased on the default export as fe.createCustom

Creates a custom equality comparator that will be used on nested values in the object. Unlike deepEqual and shallowEqual, this is a partial-application function that will receive the internal comparator and should return a function that compares two objects.

The signature is as follows:

createCustomEqual(deepEqual: function) => (objectA: any, objectB: any, meta: any) => boolean;

The meta parameter is whatever you want it to be. It will be passed through to all equality checks, and is meant specifically for use with custom equality methods. For example, with the circularDeepEqual and circularShallowEqual methods, it is used to pass through a cache of processed objects.

An example for a custom equality comparison that also checks against values in the meta object:

import { createCustomEqual } from "fast-equals";

const isDeepEqualOrFooMatchesMeta = createCustomEqual(deepEqual => {
  return (objectA, objectB, meta) => {
    return (
      objectA.foo === meta ||
      objectB.foo === meta ||
      deepEqual(objectA, objectB, meta)
    );
  };
});

const objectA = { foo: "bar" };
const objectB = { foo: "baz" };
const meta = "bar";

console.log(isDeepEqualOrFooMatchesMeta(objectA, objectB)); // true

Benchmarks

All benchmarks were performed on an i7 8-core Arch Linux laptop with 16GB of memory using NodeJS version 8.11.1, and are based on averages of running comparisons based deep equality on the following object types:

• Primitives (String, Number, null, undefined)
• Function
• Object
• Array
• Date
• RegExp
• react elements
• A mixed object with a combination of all the above types

	Operations / second	Relative margin of error
fast-equals	137,723	0.72%
nano-equal	105,151	0.89%
shallow-equal-fuzzy	101,882	0.88%
react-fast-compare	98,816	0.88%
fast-deep-equal	92,431	0.81%
underscore.isEqual	61,933	0.74%
fast-equals (circular)	55,108	0.83%
deep-equal	30,677	0.49%
lodash.isEqual	26,706	0.63%
deep-eql	16,651	0.50%
assert.deepStrictEqual	1,551	0.86%

Caveats that impact the benchmark (and accuracy of comparison):

• nano-equal does not strictly compare object property structure, array length, or object type, nor SameValueZero equality for dates
• shallow-equal-fuzzy does not strictly compare object type or regexp values, nor SameValueZero equality for dates
• fast-deep-equal does not support NaN or SameValueZero equality for dates
• react-fast-compare does not support NaN or SameValueZero equality for dates, and does not compare function equality
• underscore.isEqual does not support SameValueZero equality for primitives or dates
• deep-equal does not support NaN and does not strictly compare object type, or date / regexp values, nor uses SameValueZero equality for dates
• deep-eql does not support SameValueZero equality for zero equality (positive and negative zero are not equal)
• assert.deepStrictEqual does not support NaN or SameValueZero equality for dates

All of these have the potential of inflating the respective library's numbers in comparison to fast-equals, but it was the closest apples-to-apples comparison I could create of a reasonable sample size. Maps, Promises, and Sets were excluded from the benchmark entirely because no library other than lodash supported their comparison. The same logic applies to react elements (which can be circular objects), but simple elements are non-circular objects so I kept the react comparison very basic to allow it to be included.

Development

Standard practice, clone the repo and npm i to get the dependencies. The following npm scripts are available:

• benchmark => run benchmark tests against other equality libraries
• build => build unminified dist version with source map and NODE_ENV=development via webpack
• build:minified => build minified dist version with NODE_ENV=production via webpack
• clean => run clean:dist, clean:es, and clean:lib scripts
• clean:dist => run rimraf on the dist folder
• clean:es => run rimraf on the es folder
• clean:lib => run rimraf on the lib folder
• dev => start webpack playground App
• dist => run build and build:minified scripts
• lint => run ESLint on all files in src folder (also runs on dev script)
• lint:fix => run lint script, but with auto-fixer
• prepublish =>
• prepublish:compile => run lint, test:coverage, transpile:lib, transpile:es, and dist scripts
• start => run dev
• test => run AVA with NODE_ENV=test on all files in test folder
• test:coverage => run same script as test with code coverage calculation via nyc
• test:watch => run same script as test but keep persistent watcher
• transpile:es => run Babel on all files in src folder (transpiled to es folder without transpilation of ES2015 export syntax)
• transpile:lib => run Babel on all files in src folder (transpiled to lib folder)