Specs

intersection(list(), list()) :: list()

Returns a list containing only the elements that list1 and list2 have in common.

Miss.List.intersection/2 uses the list subtraction operator that before Erlang/OTP 22 it would be very slow if both lists to intersect are long. In such cases, consider converting each list to a MapSet, using MapSet.intersection/2, and converting back to a list.

As of Erlang/OTP 22, this list subtraction operation is significantly faster even if both lists are very long, that means Miss.List.intersection/2 is usually faster and uses less memory than using the MapSet-based alternative mentioned above.

That is also mentioned in the Erlang Efficiency Guide:

List subtraction used to have a run-time complexity proportional to the product of the length of its operands, so it was extremely slow when both lists were long.

As of OTP 22 the run-time complexity is "n log n" and the operation will complete quickly even when both lists are very long. In fact, it is faster and uses less memory than the commonly used workaround to convert both lists to ordered sets before subtracting them with ordsets:subtract/2.

examples

Examples

iex> Miss.List.intersection([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [3, 4, 5, 6, 7])
[3, 4, 5]

iex> Miss.List.intersection([4, 2, 5, 3, 1], [12, 1, 9, 5, 0])
[5, 1]

iex> Miss.List.intersection([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [6, 7, 8, 9, 0])
[]