I've been searching for a way to do the equivalent of zipping and unzipping arrays in Javascript. I've found a way to to the zipping, but not the unzipping.

Overview:

I have two lists and the first members of the lists go together, the second members go together, etc. I would like to shuffle the lists to retain this pairing, and then end up with two separate lists once again.

In Python:

#Define shuffle function
shuffle = util.shuffle;

#Lists of adult and child animals
adult = ["cat", "dog", "chicken"]
child = ["kitty", "puppy", "chick"]

#zip them so I can shuffle while keeping pairs intact; then unzip them
animals = list(zip(adult, child))
random.shuffle(animals)
adult, child = zip(*animals)
adult = list(adult)
child = list(child)

In Javascript:

In the PsychoPy forums I found a way to do the zipping that will work in Pavlovia.

animals = []
for Idx in range(len(adult)):
     animals.append([adult[Idx],labelsWhole[Idx%len(child)]])
shuffle(animals)

Outstanding:

But now how can I do the equivalent of: adult, child = zip(*animals)?

I am aware of this similar post. However, there is only one comment mentioning "unzipping" and it won't work in PsychoPy.