For arrays containing only strings or numbers you can do something with sorting, as per some of the other answers. For the general case of arrays of arbitrary objects I don't think you can avoid doing it the long way. The following will give you the intersection of any number of arrays provided as parameters to arrayIntersection:
var arrayContains = Array.prototype.indexOf ?
function(arr, val) {
return arr.indexOf(val) > -1;
} :
function(arr, val) {
var i = arr.length;
while (i--) {
if (arr[i] === val) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
};
function arrayIntersection() {
var val, arrayCount, firstArray, i, j, intersection = [], missing;
var arrays = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments); // Convert arguments into a real array
// Search for common values
firstArray = arrays.pop();
if (firstArray) {
j = firstArray.length;
arrayCount = arrays.length;
while (j--) {
val = firstArray[j];
missing = false;
// Check val is present in each remaining array
i = arrayCount;
while (!missing && i--) {
if ( !arrayContains(arrays[i], val) ) {
missing = true;
}
}
if (!missing) {
intersection.push(val);
}
}
}
return intersection;
}
arrayIntersection( [1, 2, 3, "a"], [1, "a", 2], ["a", 1] ); // Gives [1, "a"];