Comparing two arrays & get the values which are not common

Question

i wanted a small logic to compare contents of two arrays & get the value which is not common amongst them using powershell

example if

$a1=@(1,2,3,4,5)
$b1=@(1,2,3,4,5,6)

$c which is the output should give me the value "6" which is the output of what's the uncommon value between both the arrays.

Can some one help me out with the same! thanks!

Answer 1

PS > $c = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject (1..5) -DifferenceObject (1..6) -PassThru
PS > $c
6

Answer 2

$a = 1..5
$b = 4..8

$Yellow = $a | Where {$b -NotContains $_}

$Yellow contains all the items in $a except the ones that are in $b:

PS C:\> $Yellow
1
2
3

$Blue = $b | Where {$a -NotContains $_}

$Blue contains all the items in $b except the ones that are in $a:

PS C:\> $Blue
6
7
8

$Green = $a | Where {$b -Contains $_}

Not in question, but anyways; Green contains the items that are in both $a and $b.

PS C:\> $Green
4
5

Notes:

• Where is an alias of Where-Object.
  Aliases might introduce possible problems and make scripts hard to maintain.
• Instead of the -NotContains operator you might also use:
  • the -NotIn operator (and swap the operands):
    $Yellow = $a | Where {$_ -NotIn $b}
  • or use the common operator feature: "When the input is a collection, the operator returns the elements of the collection that match the right-hand value of the expression", e.g.:
    $Yellow = $a | Where {-not ($b -eq $_)}

---

Addendum 12 October 2019

As commented by @xtreampb and @mklement0: although not shown from the example in the question, the task that the question implies (values "not in common") is the symmetric difference between the two input sets (the union of yellow and blue).

Union

The symmetric difference between the $a and $b can be literally defined as the union of $Yellow and $Blue:

$NotGreen = $Yellow + $Blue

Which is written out:

$NotGreen = ($a | Where {$b -NotContains $_}) + ($b | Where {$a -NotContains $_})

Performance

As you might notice, there are quite some (redundant) loops in this syntax: all items in list $a iterate (using Where) through items in list $b (using -NotContains) and visa versa. Unfortunately the redundancy is difficult to avoid as it is difficult to predict the result of each side. A Hash Table is usually a good solution to improve the performance of redundant loops. For this, I like to redefine the question: Get the values that appear once in the sum of the collections ($a + $b):

$Count = @{}
$a + $b | ForEach-Object {$Count[$_] += 1}
$Count.Keys | Where-Object {$Count[$_] -eq 1}

By using the ForEach statement instead of the ForEach-Object cmdlet and the Where method instead of the Where-Object you might increase the performance by a factor 2.5:

$Count = @{}
ForEach ($Item in $a + $b) {$Count[$Item] += 1}
$Count.Keys.Where({$Count[$_] -eq 1})

LINQ

But Language Integrated Query (LINQ) will easily beat any native PowerShell and native .Net methods (see also High Performance PowerShell with LINQ and mklement0's answer for Can the following Nested foreach loop be simplified in PowerShell?:

To use LINQ you need to explicitly define the array types:

[Int[]]$a = 1..5
[Int[]]$b = 4..8

And use the [Linq.Enumerable]:: operator:

$Yellow   = [Int[]][Linq.Enumerable]::Except($a, $b)
$Blue     = [Int[]][Linq.Enumerable]::Except($b, $a)
$Green    = [Int[]][Linq.Enumerable]::Intersect($a, $b)
$NotGreen = [Int[]]([Linq.Enumerable]::Except($a, $b) + [Linq.Enumerable]::Except($b, $a))

SymmetricExceptWith

^{(Added 2022-05-02)}
There is actually another way to get the symmetric difference which is using the SymmetricExceptWith method of the HashSet class, for a details see the specific answer from mklement0 on Find what is different in two very large lists:

$a = [System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[int]](1..5)
$b = [System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[int]](4..8)

$a.SymmetricExceptWith($b)
$NotGreen = $a # note that the result will be stored back in $a

Benchmark

^{(Updated 2022-05-02, thanks @Santiago for the improved benchmark script)}
Benchmark results highly depend on the sizes of the collections and how many items there are actually shared. Besides there is a caveat with drawing conclussions on methods that use lazy evaluation (also called deferred execution) as with LINQ and the SymmetricExceptWith where actually pulling the result (e.g. @($a)[0]) causes the expression to be evaluated and therefore might take longer than expected as nothing has been done yet other than defining what should be done. See also: Fastest Way to get a uniquely index item from the property of an array
Anyways, as an "average", I am presuming that half of each collection is shared with the other.

Test           TotalMilliseconds
----           -----------------
Compare-Object          118.5942
Where-Object            275.6602
ForEach-Object           52.8875
foreach                  25.7626
Linq                     14.2044
SymmetricExce…            7.6329

To get a good performance comparison, caches should be cleared by e.g. starting a fresh PowerShell session.

[Int[]]$arrA = 1..1000
[Int[]]$arrB = 500..1500

Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $a -DifferenceObject $b  -PassThru
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'Compare-Object'}}, TotalMilliseconds
Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    ($a | Where {$b -NotContains $_}), ($b | Where {$a -NotContains $_})
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'Where-Object'}}, TotalMilliseconds
Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    $Count = @{}
    $a + $b | ForEach-Object {$Count[$_] += 1}
    $Count.Keys | Where-Object {$Count[$_] -eq 1}
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'ForEach-Object'}}, TotalMilliseconds
Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    $Count = @{}
    ForEach ($Item in $a + $b) {$Count[$Item] += 1}
    $Count.Keys.Where({$Count[$_] -eq 1}) # => should be foreach($key in $Count.Keys) {if($Count[$key] -eq 1) { $key }} for fairness
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'foreach'}}, TotalMilliseconds
Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    [Int[]]([Linq.Enumerable]::Except($a, $b) + [Linq.Enumerable]::Except($b, $a))
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'Linq'}}, TotalMilliseconds
Measure-Command {&{
    $a = $arrA
    $b = $arrB
    ($r = [System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[int]]::new($a)).SymmetricExceptWith($b)
}} |Select-Object @{N='Test';E={'SymmetricExceptWith'}}, TotalMilliseconds

Answer 3

Look at Compare-Object

Compare-Object $a1 $b1 | ForEach-Object { $_.InputObject }

Or if you would like to know where the object belongs to, then look at SideIndicator:

$a1=@(1,2,3,4,5,8)
$b1=@(1,2,3,4,5,6)
Compare-Object $a1 $b1

Answer 4

Try:

$a1=@(1,2,3,4,5)
$b1=@(1,2,3,4,5,6)
(Compare-Object $a1 $b1).InputObject

Or, you can use:

(Compare-Object $b1 $a1).InputObject

The order doesn't matter.

Answer 5

Your results will not be helpful unless the arrays are first sorted. To sort an array, run it through Sort-Object.

$x = @(5,1,4,2,3)
$y = @(2,4,6,1,3,5)

Compare-Object -ReferenceObject ($x | Sort-Object) -DifferenceObject ($y | Sort-Object)

Answer 6

This should help, uses simple hash table.

$a1=@(1,2,3,4,5) $b1=@(1,2,3,4,5,6)


$hash= @{}

#storing elements of $a1 in hash
foreach ($i in $a1)
{$hash.Add($i, "present")}

#define blank array $c
$c = @()

#adding uncommon ones in second array to $c and removing common ones from hash
foreach($j in $b1)
{
if(!$hash.ContainsKey($j)){$c = $c+$j}
else {hash.Remove($j)}
}

#now hash is left with uncommon ones in first array, so add them to $c
foreach($k in $hash.keys)
{
$c = $c + $k
}