DOM Traversal Methods - MarkMail

Miscellaneous Methods
$.unique()
Creates a copy of an array of objects with the duplicates removed.
$.unique(array)
Parameters
• array: An array of objects
Return Value
An array consisting of only unique objects.
Description
The $.unique() function searches through an array of objects, forming a new
array that does not contain duplicate objects. Two objects are considered distinct if
they refer to different locations in memory, even if their contents are identical. The
original array is not modified. The array may consist of any kind of JavaScript object:
var alice = {'alice’: 'alice’};
var bob = {'bob’: 'bob’};
var carol = {'carol’: 'carol’};
var ted = {'bob’: 'bob’};
var oldArray = [alice, bob, carol, bob, ted];
$(this).log('Before: ' + oldArray);
newArray = $.unique(oldArray);
$(this).log('After: ' + newArray);
The resulting array contains only the four distinct items:
Before: {alice: alice}, {bob: bob}, {carol: carol},
{bob: bob}, {bob: bob}
After: {alice: alice, mergeNum: 52}, {bob: bob, mergeNum: 52},
{carol: carol, mergeNum: 52}, {bob: bob, mergeNum: 52}
The second instance of the object named bob is removed from the resulting array.
However, the object named ted remains even though it has identical content, since it
was created as a separate object.
Note that $.unique() modifies the objects in the array, adding an extra property
called mergeNum to each. This property is a side effect of the implementation of the
function, and is not useful to the calling code.
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