group and groupToMap why not merge into one api

[c0dedance]

group and groupToMap why not merge into one api, I think the implementation of the latter includes the former

[ljharb]

How would you specify that you wanted an object vs a Map, if it was in a single API?

[Andrew-Cottrell]

I'm questioning weather or not groupToMap is really necessary... it seems pretty easy to just use slice if you need a new copy...

[].slice().group(...)

group(...) evaluates to a plain object rather than a Map (see examples).

slice() is unnecessary here as group and groupToMap do not modify the original array.

[michaelficarra]

I guess in theory we could have a single API which produces "entries" (an array of pairs) and then that could be passed to either Object.fromEntries or new Map (or maybe others) depending on the desired use.

[zloirock]

@michaelficarra how do you propose to handle keys?

Object.keys(['1', 1, { toString() { return 1 } }].group(it => it)).length; // => 1
['1', 1, { toString() { return 1 } }].groupToMap(it => it).size; // => 3

[bakkot]

This has already been discussed at some length in #3. For the entries suggestion, see in particular this comment and the few preceding it: you can't produce entries without know if you are producing entries-as-for-object or entries-as-for-Map, because you don't know if "1" and 1 should be treated as being the same group.

If you want entries, make a Map and iterate it.