Compare 2 arrays which returns difference

I know this is an old question, but I thought I would share this little trick.

var diff = $(old_array).not(new_array).get();

diff now contains what was in old_array that is not in new_array

Working demo http://jsfiddle.net/u9xES/

Good link (Jquery Documentation): http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page {you can search or read APIs here}

Hope this will help you if you are looking to do it in JQuery.

The alert in the end prompts the array of uncommon element Array i.e. difference between 2 array.

Please lemme know if I missed anything, cheers!

Code

var array1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6];
var array2 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9];
var difference = [];

jQuery.grep(array2, function(el) {
        if (jQuery.inArray(el, array1) == -1) difference.push(el);
});

alert(" the difference is " + difference);​ // Changed variable name 

use underscore as :

_.difference(array1,array2)

var arrayDiff = function (firstArr, secondArr) {
    var i, o = [], fLen = firstArr.length, sLen = secondArr.length, len;


    if (fLen > sLen) {
        len = sLen;
    } else if (fLen < sLen) {
        len = fLen;
    } else {
        len = sLen;
    }
    for (i=0; i < len; i++) {
        if (firstArr[i] !== secondArr[i]) {
            o.push({idx: i, elem1: firstArr[i], elem2: secondArr[i]});  //idx: array index
        }
    }

    if (fLen > sLen) {  // first > second
        for (i=sLen; i< fLen; i++) {
            o.push({idx: i, 0: firstArr[i], 1: undefined});
        }
    } else if (fLen < sLen) {
        for (i=fLen; i< sLen; i++) {
            o.push({idx: i, 0: undefined, 1: secondArr[i]});
        }
    }    

    return o;
};