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Find the intersection of the keys/indices on the two arrays/objects.
Analyze the data structure recursively.
For each key in the intersection, omit if there are no differences in the leaves. Otherwise return the difference.
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Problems involving deep object comparison and recursive traversal are common in technical interviews. Variations of this question test knowledge of recursion, object traversal, and handling nested data structures.
The optimal approach is a recursive depth-first comparison of both objects. By traversing keys from both objects and comparing values at each level, differences can be detected efficiently while handling nested structures.
Nested objects are compared recursively. If both values are objects, the algorithm continues deeper into their keys; otherwise, mismatched primitive values are recorded directly in the result.
Objects or hash maps are ideal because they allow constant-time key lookups. They also make it easy to compute the union of keys and recursively compare nested structures.
