In_array alternative for Golang. Searching value in 'map, array, slice'.

Emirhan — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 07:34:07 +0000

Hi, I started golang nowadays. I moved from PHP to Golang and I can say that Golang is too beautiful.
I didn't know there's not search function exists until I decided to write a package.
Basically in PHP, we might be implement our 'in_array' alternative like this;

if (is_array($x)) {
   foreach ($x as $v) {
      if ($v == $searchVal) { return true; }
   }
}

Of course, This alternative can be used non-multidimensional.
In Golang, we cannot decide type of variable easily. There's a package called 'Reflect'.
Reflect package is not used only getting the type of any variable. Its documentation is here.

If we understand what we gonna do then we can do!
Let's write the func prototype;

func In_array(search interface{}, array interface{}) bool

No body want to restrict the search value's type because we want to search any type, any time. Because of that, I used 'interface{}'.
As same as search, incoming value(which is array) must be interface{} too.

import (
    "reflect"
)

func In_array(search interface{}, array interface{}) bool {

    val := reflect.ValueOf(array)
    val = val.Convert(val.Type())

    typ := reflect.TypeOf(array).Kind()

    switch typ {
    case reflect.Map:
        s := val.MapRange()

        for s.Next() {
            s.Value().Convert(s.Value().Type())
            for i := 0; i < s.Value().Len(); i++ {
                if deep {
                    if reflect.DeepEqual(search, s.Value().Index(i).Interface()) {
                        return true
                    }
                } else {
                    str := s.Value().Index(i).String()
                    if strings.Contains(str, search.(string)) {
                        return true
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    case reflect.Slice, reflect.Array:
        for i := 0; i < val.Len(); i++ {
            if reflect.DeepEqual(search, val.Index(i).Interface()) {
                return true
            }
        }
    }

    return false
}

We're detecting type of value with this line of code;

reflect.TypeOf(array).Kind()

This code, prepare 'reflect' package's constants they might be;

Map,
Array,
Slice,
String,
....

We should iterate the Value by MapRange() if Value is Map
(don't forget, we're not doing recursive stuff. This is just a idea)
Then we're looping current index's value and checking if given search value is equal to map's value.
It's same as nested loops.

I used the DeepEqual() because,
Docs:DeepEqual reports whether x and y are “deeply equal,” defined as follows. Two values of identical type are deeply equal if one of the following cases applies. Values of distinct types are never deeply equal.

And BUM! This is simple and efficient. We can test it with this;

rules := map[string][]string{
    "name":    {"must-be-string", "min-len-20"},
    "surname": {"must-be-string", "min-len-15"},
}
in_array("must-be-string", rules) // true

There're some changes made because of deep and logical problems. I updated the code so you can use it with ease.

Here's the source code,

ashkan90 / golang-in_array

PHP in_array alternative for golang

golang-in_array

PHP in_array alternative for golang

It's tested with

"search any type in array of map"
[] "any type in recursive map (no depth)"
"any type in array"
"any type in slice"

View on GitHub

Forem: Emirhan

In_array alternative for Golang. Searching value in 'map, array, slice'.

ashkan90 / golang-in_array

PHP in_array alternative for golang

golang-in_array