Supporting wildcards

[SunPj]

Supporting wildcards

It would be useful to be able to pass wildcards (*) in path for setIn removeIn, updateIn methods. A wildcard should match all elements in an array or all props in an object.

Example

{
    a: {
        b: 1,
        c: [
            {x: 1, y: 2}
        ]
    },
    b: {
        b: 1,
        c: [
            {x: 1, y: 2}
        ]
    }
}

deleteIn(x, ['*', 'c', 'x'])

Out

{
    a: {
        b: 1,
        c: [
            {y: 2}
        ]
    },
    b: {
        b: 1,
        c: [
            {y: 2}
        ]
    }
}

[jdeniau]

Seems interesting, but how do you handle * as, real key?

[bdurrer]

maybe that would need extra functions, e.g. setAll, deleteAll,... or a matcher function. On the other hand, it's proabably easier to just do forEach with set than that, I imagine merging all the changes across multiple layers in one go would be difficult

[SunPj]

Seems interesting, but how do you handle * as, real key?

What if we use come object type or constant value instead of plan string there?
For example predefined ANY type const any = {}; so path looks like [any, 'c', 'a']

[SunPj]

On the other hand, it's proabably easier to just do forEach with set

In case we have nested structure where array or map elements have similar structure, it becomes too cumbersome to write such update methods with forEach and Set.
Each * replace one one nested forEach.

Say we want to delete people's sensitive data when authenticated user signs out, so no sensitive data is displayed on the site page. If user is nested structure and we have something like city -> street -> house -> user then we will end up having 4 nested update functions, where the syntax with wildcard will be pretty expressive ['*', '*', '*', 'user', 'email']

[jdeniau]

After some though, it may be possible to inject a RegExp object in the path. What do you think?

[SunPj]

After some though, it may be possible to inject a RegExp object in the path. What do you think?

Yes, this is a good idea and provides even more flexibility

[bdurrer]

RegEx could be keys too. Having a Map or Set with RegEx keys is unlikely, but not impossible.
The problem with existing functions is, that anything can be a key. The "ANY" special constant would work, but might be clunky

[jdeniau]

@bdurrer fou are right, anything can be a key.

@SunPj I think that we might work with a special exported ANY symbol. Are you willing to work on this?