7.4 Implementing generic deep updating

The following function implements generic deep updating.

function deepUpdate(original, keys, value) {
  if (keys.length === 0) {
    return value;
  }
  const currentKey = keys[0];
  if (Array.isArray(original)) {
    return original.map(
      (v, index) => index === currentKey
        ? deepUpdate(v, keys.slice(1), value) // (A)
        : v); // (B)
  } else if (typeof original === 'object' && original !== null) {
    return Object.fromEntries(
      Object.entries(original).map(
        (keyValuePair) => {
          const [k,v] = keyValuePair;
          if (k === currentKey) {
            return [k, deepUpdate(v, keys.slice(1), value)]; // (C)
          } else {
            return keyValuePair; // (D)
          }
        }));
  } else {
    // Primitive value
    return original;
  }
}

If we see value as the root of a tree that we are updating, then deepUpdate() only deeply changes a single branch (line A and C). All other branches are copied shallowly (line B and D).

This is what using deepUpdate() looks like:

const original = {name: 'Jane', work: {employer: 'Acme'}};
const copy = deepUpdate(original, ['work', 'employer'], 'Spectre');
assert.deepEqual(copy, {name: 'Jane', work: {employer: 'Spectre'}});
assert.deepEqual(original, {name: 'Jane', work: {employer: 'Acme'}});