Scala array comparison (without a PhD)

Scala collections and equality

Scala collections follow a simple set of general equality rules¹. Two collections are equal if:

• they are in the same overall category (Seq, Set, or Map)
• they contain the same elements (as defined by ==)
• for sequences, the elements are in the same order

This means the following:

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scala> List(1, 2, 3) == Vector(1, 2, 3)
res0: Boolean = true

scala> List(1, 2, 3) == Set(1, 2, 3)
res1: Boolean = false

scala> Set(1, 2, 3) == collection.mutable.LinkedHashSet(3, 1, 2)
res2: Boolean = true

Arrays don’t behave

The gotcha is that these rules break down with arrays:

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scala> List(1, 2, 3) == Array(1, 2, 3)
res3: Boolean = false

And even:

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scala> Array(1, 2, 3) == Array(1, 2, 3)
res4: Boolean = false

Why is this? The answer is that arrays in Java are treated specially all the way down to the JVM, and Scala arrays are just plain Java arrays. It is not possible to extend a JVM array, and this means in particular that it is not possible to override equals on arrays. Since native array eqality via equals does not compare array content, arrays are left to behave differently from Scala collections.

Solutions

So how do you go about comparing arrays in a way compatible with other Scala collections? First, there is an implicit conversion from Array to collection.mutable.WrappedArray, which is a Seq, so you can write:

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scala> (Array(1, 2, 3): WrappedArray[Int]) == (Array(1, 2, 3): WrappedArray[Int])
res5: Boolean = true

Or even shorter:

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scala> (Array(1, 2, 3): Seq[Int]) == (Array(1, 2, 3): Seq[Int])
res6: Boolean = true

Of course this also works if you pass an array to anything which expects a Seq:

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scala> def sameStuff(s1: Seq[Int], s2: Seq[Int]) = s1 == s2
foo: (s1: Seq[Int], s2: Seq[Int])Boolean

scala> sameStuff(Array(1, 2, 3), Array(1, 2, 3))
res7: Boolean = true

From a memory perspective, this is not too bad because WrappedArray doesn’t make an expensive copy of the collection and instead just wraps the array.² But there is boxing going on with WrappedArray because it’s not a value class ³ (or rather concrete implementations of it are not value classes). Value classes cannot override equality⁴, and a WrappedArray couldn’t be a proper Seq if that were the case.⁵

There is another way to compare array content with sameElements:

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scala> Array(1, 2, 3) sameElements Array(1, 2, 3)
res8: Boolean = true

The benefit is that this more explicitly states the intent, and you don’t need to convert the arrays to Seq via type declarations.

Nested arrays

Both solutions above only work if arrays are not nested. Consider:

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scala> Array(Array(11), Array(21, 22)) sameElements Array(Array(11), Array(21, 22))
res9: Boolean = false

The reason is that sameElements (or == on WrappedArray) just calls == on each array element. If those elements are arrays, Java array equality kicks in again (and we know that array content is not compared in that case).

Instead you can use the deep method:

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scala> Array(Array(11), Array(21, 22)).deep == Array(Array(11), Array(21, 22)).deep
res10: Boolean = true

The deep method wraps arrays so that each access to an array element is first checked: if the element itself is an array, it is wrapped with WrappedArray first.⁶ This way equality recursively works (but only if each array is directly nested in an array!).

It is generally safe to use deep instead of sameElements or a conversion to WrappedArray, but the implementation of deep requires a number of pattern matches, which are not known to be the fastest. If the arrays are known to be flat, the other approaches might be more efficient.

Case classes

Consider this case class:

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scala> case class Foo(a: Array[Int])
defined class Foo

scala> Foo(Array(1)) == Foo(Array(1))
res11: Boolean = false

By now you know why this happens: the case class provides an implementation of == for you, but doesn’t treat arrays specially. If equality matters to you (and it probably should if you use case classes), it is better to write instead something like this:

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scala> case class Foo(a: Seq[Int])
defined class Foo

scala> Foo(Array(1)) == Foo(Array(1))
res12: Boolean = true

Here the case class actually refers to a WrappedArray, obtained via implicit conversion from the original array.

Words of wisdom

The equality issue suggests that it is wise to avoid arrays when possible. If you cannot avoid them, beware of the semantic of equality on them! But since arrays offer interoperability with Java and are compact, native data structures that offers performance benefits, it’s often hard to live without them entirely.

There are a number of StackOverflow questions that cover this topic as well.⁷ Please let me know if I omitted anything important!