Using ArraySome and ArrayEvery Higher-Order Functions in Lucee

In this post I'm going to take two Lucee only higher-order array functions, arraySome() and arrayEvery(), and explain their use and purpose. I'll also review the concept of a higher-order function, as well as the Super Cool (yet very little used) lambda expression available in Lucee 5.

What Is a Higher-Order Function?

According to Wikipedia, higher-order functions are functions that either 1. take a function as an argument or 2. return a function as a result. These two functions we'll be looking at, arraySome() and arrayEvery(), are just two of many "Higher order functions" defined in Coldfusion. Some other examples of higher-order functions in CF are arrayMap(), listEach() or structFilter(), all of which take a piece of data along with a function and apply the function to each data item in some way.

Now that we understand the concept a little, let's dig in to arraySome() and arrayEvery()!

ArraySome

arraySome() executes a given function upon every element in a given array. If the function ever returns true, then arraySome() itself will return true - making this function great for conditionals.

Here's a quick example:

var checkBadWord = function(badWord) {
    return form.comments CONTAINS badWord
};
var isVulgar = arraySome(allBadWords, checkBadWord);

This example runs the checkBadWord function upon every item in the allBadWords array. Then the submitted comments field posted from a comment form gets checked for the presence of the bad word, and if any are found the isVulgar variable is set to true.

For a full reference, go check out CFDocs.org/arraysome.

ArrayEvery

Much like arraySome(), this arrayEvery() function is great for conditionals because it evaluates to a boolean - it iterates upon the provided array, executes the given function, and returns true if all iterations (closure executions) returned true.

Here's a real-world example of how you might use arrayEvery() to parse contact information:

var contacts = [
    { name: "Michael", email: "info@test.com" },
    { name: "Travis", email: "xyz" },
];
var isValidEmail = function( contact ) {
    return isValid("email",contact.email);
}
if ( arrayEvery(contacts, isValidEmail) ) {
    // SEND EMAIL
}

This shows us how we can use arrayEvery() to confirm that all items in an array have a valid email address before we go blindly sending emails to those addresses.

Lambda Expressions

Now that you know how these work, let's take another look at that code snippet and see if we can clean it up a little.

var isValidEmail = function( contact ) {
    return isValid("email",contact.email);
}
if ( arrayEvery(contacts, isValidEmail) ) {
    // SEND EMAIL
}

As you can see, there's a decent bit of overhead with the function definition and so forth. This is the perfect case for a lambda expression, introduced in Lucee 5. Lambda expressions offer a much shorter way to write functions, and are especially useful for functional programming. Let's see an example.

if ( arrayEvery(contacts, (contact) => isValid("email",contact.email) ) ) {
    // SEND EMAIL
}

There - using lambda expressions is a much cleaner, shorter way to write the closure.

Wrap Up

There you have it - a brief overview of higher-order functions, how to use arraySome() and arrayEvery(), and even how to use lambda expressions to streamline the code examples. Any questions? Feel free to contact me!