Finding the Symmetric Difference of Two Arrays

This challenge focuses on identifying the elements that are unique to each of two arrays. Determining the symmetric difference is a common operation in set theory and data analysis, useful for identifying distinct items between two collections. Your task is to write a JavaScript function that efficiently calculates and returns the symmetric difference of two input arrays.

Problem Description

You are required to write a JavaScript function called symmetricDifference that takes two arrays, arr1 and arr2, as input. The function should return a new array containing elements that are present in either arr1 or arr2, but not in both. The order of elements in the returned array does not matter.

Key Requirements:

• The function must handle arrays containing any data type (numbers, strings, booleans, etc.).
• The function should correctly identify elements present in only one of the arrays.
• Duplicate elements within a single input array should be handled correctly (i.e., if an element appears multiple times in one array but not at all in the other, it should appear only once in the result).
• The function should not modify the original input arrays.

Expected Behavior:

The function should return a new array containing the symmetric difference. If both arrays are identical, the function should return an empty array.

Edge Cases to Consider:

• Empty input arrays.
• Arrays with duplicate elements.
• Arrays with mixed data types.
• Arrays with null or undefined values (handle gracefully - consider them as distinct elements).

Examples

Example 1:

Input: arr1 = [1, 2, 3], arr2 = [3, 4, 5]
Output: [1, 2, 4, 5]
Explanation: 1 and 2 are in arr1 but not arr2. 4 and 5 are in arr2 but not arr1.

Example 2:

Input: arr1 = [1, 2, 2, 3], arr2 = [3, 4, 4, 5]
Output: [1, 2, 4, 5]
Explanation: Duplicate elements are handled correctly. Only unique elements from each array are included in the result.

Example 3:

Input: arr1 = [1, 2, 3], arr2 = [1, 2, 3]
Output: []
Explanation: Both arrays are identical, so the symmetric difference is empty.

Example 4:

Input: arr1 = [], arr2 = [1, 2, 3]
Output: [1, 2, 3]
Explanation: arr1 is empty, so the result is arr2.

Constraints

• The input arrays arr1 and arr2 can contain any number of elements (including zero).
• The elements within the arrays can be of any JavaScript data type.
• The time complexity of your solution should be O(n + m), where n is the length of arr1 and m is the length of arr2. Using nested loops that result in O(n*m) complexity will be considered inefficient.
• The space complexity of your solution should be O(n + m) in the worst case (e.g., when the arrays have no common elements).

Notes

Consider using JavaScript's Set object to efficiently track the presence of elements in each array. Sets provide fast lookups (O(1) on average) which can help optimize the overall performance of your solution. Remember to handle the case where an element appears multiple times in one array but not the other. The goal is to find the symmetric difference, meaning elements unique to either array.