Sorting an array of JavaScript objects

Question

I read the following objects using Ajax and stored them in an array:

var homes = [
    {
        "h_id": "3",
        "city": "Dallas",
        "state": "TX",
        "zip": "75201",
        "price": "162500"
    }, {
        "h_id": "4",
        "city": "Bevery Hills",
        "state": "CA",
        "zip": "90210",
        "price": "319250"
    }, {
        "h_id": "5",
        "city": "New York",
        "state": "NY",
        "zip": "00010",
        "price": "962500"
    }
];

How do I create a function to sort the objects by the price property in ascending or descending order using only JavaScript?

Answer 1

Here is a culmination of all answers above.

Fiddle validation: http://jsfiddle.net/bobberino/4qqk3/

var sortOn = function (arr, prop, reverse, numeric) {

    // Ensure there's a property
    if (!prop || !arr) {
        return arr
    }

    // Set up sort function
    var sort_by = function (field, rev, primer) {

        // Return the required a,b function
        return function (a, b) {

            // Reset a, b to the field
            a = primer(a[field]), b = primer(b[field]);

            // Do actual sorting, reverse as needed
            return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0)) * (rev ? -1 : 1);
        }

    }

    // Distinguish between numeric and string to prevent 100's from coming before smaller
    // e.g.
    // 1
    // 20
    // 3
    // 4000
    // 50

    if (numeric) {

        // Do sort "in place" with sort_by function
        arr.sort(sort_by(prop, reverse, function (a) {

            // - Force value to a string.
            // - Replace any non numeric characters.
            // - Parse as float to allow 0.02 values.
            return parseFloat(String(a).replace(/[^0-9.-]+/g, ''));

        }));
    } else {

        // Do sort "in place" with sort_by function
        arr.sort(sort_by(prop, reverse, function (a) {

            // - Force value to string.
            return String(a).toUpperCase();

        }));
    }


}

Answer 2

For a normal array of elements values only:

function sortArrayOfElements(arrayToSort) {
    function compareElements(a, b) {
        if (a < b)
            return -1;
        if (a > b)
            return 1;
        return 0;
    }

    return arrayToSort.sort(compareElements);
}

e.g. 1:
var array1 = [1,2,545,676,64,2,24]
output : [1, 2, 2, 24, 64, 545, 676]

var array2 = ["v","a",545,676,64,2,"24"]
output: ["a", "v", 2, "24", 64, 545, 676]

For an array of objects:

function sortArrayOfObjects(arrayToSort, key) {
    function compareObjects(a, b) {
        if (a[key] < b[key])
            return -1;
        if (a[key] > b[key])
            return 1;
        return 0;
    }

    return arrayToSort.sort(compareObjects);
}

e.g. 1: var array1= [{"name": "User4", "value": 4},{"name": "User3", "value": 3},{"name": "User2", "value": 2}]

output : [{"name": "User2", "value": 2},{"name": "User3", "value": 3},{"name": "User4", "value": 4}]

Answer 3

To sort it you need to create a comparator function taking two arguments. Then call the sort function with that comparator function as follows:

// a and b are object elements of your array
function mycomparator(a,b) {
  return parseInt(a.price, 10) - parseInt(b.price, 10);
}
homes.sort(mycomparator);

If you want to sort ascending switch the expressions on each side of the minus sign.

Answer 4

Use lodash.sortBy, (instructions using commonjs, you can also just put the script include-tag for the cdn at the top of your html)

var sortBy = require('lodash.sortby');
// or
sortBy = require('lodash').sortBy;

Descending order

var descendingOrder = sortBy( homes, 'price' ).reverse();

Ascending order

var ascendingOrder = sortBy( homes, 'price' );

Answer 5

This is a nice JQuery plug in:

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/sort (Wayback Machine Link)

Answer 6

You will need two function

function desc(a, b) {
 return b < a ? -1 : b > a ? 1 : b >= a ? 0 : NaN;
}

function asc(a, b) {
  return a < b ? -1 : a > b ? 1 : a >= b ? 0 : NaN;
}

Then you can apply this to any object property:

 data.sort((a, b) => desc(parseFloat(a.price), parseFloat(b.price)));

let data = [
    {label: "one", value:10},
    {label: "two", value:5},
    {label: "three", value:1},
];

// sort functions
function desc(a, b) {
 return b < a ? -1 : b > a ? 1 : b >= a ? 0 : NaN;
}

function asc(a, b) {
 return a < b ? -1 : a > b ? 1 : a >= b ? 0 : NaN;
}

// DESC
data.sort((a, b) => desc(a.value, b.value));

document.body.insertAdjacentHTML(
 'beforeend', 
 '<strong>DESCending sorted</strong><pre>' + JSON.stringify(data) +'</pre>'
);

// ASC
data.sort((a, b) => asc(a.value, b.value));

document.body.insertAdjacentHTML(
 'beforeend', 
 '<strong>ASCending sorted</strong><pre>' + JSON.stringify(data) +'</pre>'
);