Difference Between indexOf and findIndex function of array

I am confused between the difference between the two function indexOf and find Index in an array.

The documentation says

findIndex - Returns the index of the first element in the array where predicate is true, and -1 otherwise.

and

indexOf - Returns the index of the first occurrence of a value in an array.


Solution 1:

The main difference are the parameters of these functions:

  • Array.prototype.indexOf() expects a value as first parameter. This makes it a good choice to find the index in arrays of primitive types (like string, number, or boolean).

  • Array.prototype.findIndex() expects a callback as first parameter. Use this if you need the index in arrays with non-primitive types (e.g. objects) or your find condition is more complex than just a value.

See the links for examples of both cases.

Solution 2:

FindIndex is useful if you want to find the first element that matches to your predicate: In W3C's example, there are numbers and matches if the customer's age above or equals to 18.

var ages = [3, 10, 18, 20];

function checkAdult(age) {
    return age >= 18;
}

console.log(ages.findIndex(checkAdult));

console:

2

You can find an exact element index with the indexOf function of Array, but you can't pass a predicate. It is faster if you want to find a specific element:

var ages = [3, 10, 18, 20];
console.log(ages.indexOf(10));

returns:

1

Index counting starts at 0, so the first element index is 0.