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Find properties that are null for every JavaScript object in an array

For example, if I have a JavaScript array of objects such as:

var jsObjects = [
   {a: 1, b: 2, c: null, d: 3, e: null}, 
   {a: 3, b: null, c: null, d: 5, e: null}, 
   {a: null, b: 6, c: null, d: 3, e: null}, 
   {a: null, b: 8, c: null, d: 1, e: null}
];

I would expect the output to be [“c”, “e”].

My current solution is to call a function for each column & loop through the jsObjects:

function isAllNull(col) {
    var allNulls = true;
    for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    
       if (jsObjects[i].col != null) { 
             allNulls = false;
             break;
        }
      }
}

But I would like for this function to be more generic such that it will jsObjects with any number of arbitrary simple (i.e. not objects) properties. The objects in the array all have the same properties.

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Answer

If you guarantee that each object in the array has the same properties then:

  • take the keys from the first object in the array
  • reduce the keys and test every key in the original array for null
  • if every key returns true then include the key in the output

Example:

var jsObjects = [
   {a: 1, b: 2, c: null, d: 3, e: null}, 
   {a: 3, b: null, c: null, d: 5, e: null}, 
   {a: null, b: 6, c: null, d: 3, e: null}, 
   {a: null, b: 8, c: null, d: 1, e: null}
];

function nullCols(arr) {
  var keys = Object.keys(arr[0]);
  var nulls = keys.reduce((output, key) => {
    if (arr.every(item => item[key] === null)) {
      output.push(key);
    }
    return output;
  }, []);
  return nulls;
}

console.log(nullCols(jsObjects));
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