Often you may need to check that one or more elements exist in an list, and do some logic based on the logic. Dart includes some handy methods to make this easy.

indexOf

This is another method that exists on the list, but not sets (because lists care about index, and sets don't necessarily). You may have seen this method in other languages on arrays.

List.indexOf(element) returns the index of the given element in the list. If the element doesn't exist, if returns -1. That's important, because it doesn't throw an error if the element doesn't exist.

List<String> animals = ['fish', 'tiger', 'crow'];
print(animals.indexOf('fish'); // 0
print(animals.indexOf('elephant'); // -1

contains

contains(element) does exist on the base class of Iterable. It returns a boolean based on weather the given element is in the list or not.

List<String> animals = ['fish', 'tiger', 'crow'];
print(animals.contains('fish'); // true
print(animals.contains('elephant'); // false

The Map collection isn't an iterable, but contains similar methods containsKey and containsValue. These are mightly useful when keeping track of some data with a map in memory.

Map<String, int> favoriteNumbers = {
'Greg': 3,
'Stephanie': 7,
'Alison': 4,
}
// throws error!
print(favoriteNumbers['John']);
// safe!
if (favoriteNumbers.containsKey('John')) print(favoriteNumbers['John']);

any and every

First, a review

First, let's take another look at the most 'basic' functional method on iterables: forEach. This method will touch every element in the iterable, in order, and call the function you pass in as an argument on each element. It's no different than looping over each element and calling the same function:

    
void main() {
   List ages = [29, 27, 42];
    // should print 30, 28, 43
    for (var age in ages) {
        _addAndPrint(age);
    }
    // should print 30, 28, 43
    ages.forEach((int age) => _addAndPrint(age));
}
void _addAndPrint(int number) {
    print(1 + number);
}

ages.forEach(_addAndPrint);
// This is *exactly* the same as:
ages.forEach((int age) => _addAndPrint(age)); 

any

Iterable.any is a method that returns true if any single element in the iterable satisfies a 'test' that's passed in as a callback. For example, if you have a list of users and want to find out if any of them are under 18, any would be a good method to use.

    
class User {
  User(this.name, this.age);
  final String name;
  final int age;
}
List users = [
  User('Zoltan', 55),
  User('Trey', 19),
  User('Marsha', 32),
];
void main() {
  final anyUnder18 = users.any((User u) => u.age < 18);
  if (anyUnder18) {
    print('Sorry, kid');
  } else {
    print('commence party!');
  }
}

every

Iterable.every is like any, but returns true if and only if each element in the list satisfies the test passed in as a callback.

    
class User {
  User(this.name, this.age);
  final String name;
  final int age;
}
List users = [
  User('Zoltan', 55),
  User('Trey', 19),
  User('Marsha', 32),
];
void main() {
  final allUsersAbleToParty = users.every((User u) => u.age > 18);
  if (allUsersAbleToParty) {
    print('Sorry, kid');
  } else {
    print('commence party!');
  }
}

As you can see, these methods are similar. The above functionality was implemented with only two changes. any became every and u.age < 18 changed to using a greater than sign.

A real-life use case that you may find for these methods is when checking roles or permissions on a user. For example, can this user make a sale? Well, lets see if they have any of the roles that allow users to make sales. Alternatively, maybe they need every role.

The following DartPad exercise asks you to implement that feature.

Try it yourself. Using any and every