Tell me more ×
Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 11 down vote favorite
5

I have a multidimensional array. The primary array is an array of 

[publicationID][publication_name][ownderID][owner_name]

What I am trying to do is sort the array by owner_name and then by publication_name. I know in JavaScript you have Array.sort(), into which you can put a custom function, in my case i have:

function mysortfunction(a, b) {
    var x = a[3].toLowerCase();
    var y = b[3].toLowerCase();

    return ((x < y) ? -1 : ((x > y) ? 1 : 0));
}

This is fine for just sorting on the one column, namely owner_name, but how do I modify it to sort on owner_name, then publication_name?

share|improve this question

3 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

If owner names differ, sort by them. Otherwise, use publication name for tiebreaker.

function mysortfunction(a, b) {

  var o1 = a[3].toLowerCase();
  var o2 = b[3].toLowerCase();

  var p1 = a[1].toLowerCase();
  var p2 = b[1].toLowerCase();

  if (o1 != o2) {
    if (o1 < o2) return -1;
    if (o1 > o2) return 1;
    return 0;
  }
  if (p1 < p2) return -1;
  if (p1 > p2) return 1;
  return 0;
}
share|improve this answer
Thank you, I think I read a few posts online and just got confused, looking for something much more complicated, but this was perfect. Thanks, R. – flavour404 May 6 '10 at 21:00
looks like you are returning true or false instead of a greater or less than zero- – kennebec May 6 '10 at 21:59
It was more or less pseudocode based on OP's code just to give him/her the right idea, but I corrected it. Thanks for pointing it out. By the way, it seems that using return o1 > o2 works (I had the inequality operator backwards). But I did the -1, 0, 1 thing just to be safe :). – dcp May 6 '10 at 23:23
up vote 7 down vote

This is handy for alpha sorts of all sizes. Pass it the indexes you want to sort by, in order, as arguments.

Array.prototype.deepSortAlpha= function(){
    var itm, L=arguments.length, order=arguments;

    var alphaSort= function(a, b){
        a= a.toLowerCase();
        b= b.toLowerCase();
        if(a== b) return 0;
        return a> b? 1:-1;
    }
    if(!L) return this.sort(alphaSort);

    this.sort(function(a, b){
        var tem= 0,  indx=0;
        while(tem==0 && indx<L){
            itm=order[indx];
            tem= alphaSort(a[itm], b[itm]); 
            indx+=1;        
        }
        return tem;
    });
    return this;
}

var arr= [[ "Nilesh","Karmshil"], ["Pranjal","Deka"], ["Susants","Ghosh"],
["Shiv","Shankar"], ["Javid","Ghosh"], ["Shaher","Banu"], ["Javid","Rashid"]];

arr.deepSortAlpha(1,0);
share|improve this answer
This is gold. I needed to sort by 3 keys and found your solution. – Robert Kerr Jul 20 '12 at 18:19
up vote 1 down vote

came across a need to do SQL-style mixed asc and desc object array sorts by keys.

kennebec's solution above helped me get to this:

Array.prototype.keySort = function(keys) {

keys = keys || {};

// via
// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5223/length-of-javascript-object-ie-associative-array
var obLen = function(obj) {
    var size = 0, key;
    for (key in obj) {
        if (obj.hasOwnProperty(key))
            size++;
    }
    return size;
};

// avoiding using Object.keys because i guess did it have IE8 issues?
// else var obIx = fucntion(obj, ix){ return Object.keys(obj)[ix]; } or
// whatever
var obIx = function(obj, ix) {
    var size = 0, key;
    for (key in obj) {
        if (obj.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
            if (size == ix)
                return key;
            size++;
        }
    }
    return false;
};

var keySort = function(a, b, d) {
    d = d !== null ? d : 1;
    // a = a.toLowerCase(); // this breaks numbers
    // b = b.toLowerCase();
    if (a == b)
        return 0;
    return a > b ? 1 * d : -1 * d;
};

var KL = obLen(keys);

if (!KL)
    return this.sort(keySort);

for ( var k in keys) {
    // asc unless desc or skip
    keys[k] = 
            keys[k] == 'desc' || keys[k] == -1  ? -1 
          : (keys[k] == 'skip' || keys[k] === 0 ? 0 
          : 1);
}

this.sort(function(a, b) {
    var sorted = 0, ix = 0;

    while (sorted === 0 && ix < KL) {
        var k = obIx(keys, ix);
        if (k) {
            var dir = keys[k];
            sorted = keySort(a[k], b[k], dir);
            ix++;
        }
    }
    return sorted;
});
return this;
};

sample usage:

var obja = [
  {USER:"bob",  SCORE:2000, TIME:32,    AGE:16, COUNTRY:"US"},
  {USER:"jane", SCORE:4000, TIME:35,    AGE:16, COUNTRY:"DE"},
  {USER:"tim",  SCORE:1000, TIME:30,    AGE:17, COUNTRY:"UK"},
  {USER:"mary", SCORE:1500, TIME:31,    AGE:19, COUNTRY:"PL"},
  {USER:"joe",  SCORE:2500, TIME:33,    AGE:18, COUNTRY:"US"},
  {USER:"sally",    SCORE:2000, TIME:30,    AGE:16, COUNTRY:"CA"},
  {USER:"yuri", SCORE:3000, TIME:34,    AGE:19, COUNTRY:"RU"},
  {USER:"anita",    SCORE:2500, TIME:32,    AGE:17, COUNTRY:"LV"},
  {USER:"mark", SCORE:2000, TIME:30,    AGE:18, COUNTRY:"DE"},
  {USER:"amy",  SCORE:1500, TIME:29,    AGE:19, COUNTRY:"UK"}
];

var sorto = {
  SCORE:"desc",TIME:"asc", AGE:"asc"
};

obja.keySort(sorto);

yields the following:

 0: {     USER: jane;     SCORE: 4000;    TIME: 35;       AGE: 16;    COUNTRY: DE;   }
 1: {     USER: yuri;     SCORE: 3000;    TIME: 34;       AGE: 19;    COUNTRY: RU;   }
 2: {     USER: anita;    SCORE: 2500;    TIME: 32;       AGE: 17;    COUNTRY: LV;   }
 3: {     USER: joe;      SCORE: 2500;    TIME: 33;       AGE: 18;    COUNTRY: US;   }
 4: {     USER: sally;    SCORE: 2000;    TIME: 30;       AGE: 16;    COUNTRY: CA;   }
 5: {     USER: mark;     SCORE: 2000;    TIME: 30;       AGE: 18;    COUNTRY: DE;   }
 6: {     USER: bob;      SCORE: 2000;    TIME: 32;       AGE: 16;    COUNTRY: US;   }
 7: {     USER: amy;      SCORE: 1500;    TIME: 29;       AGE: 19;    COUNTRY: UK;   }
 8: {     USER: mary;     SCORE: 1500;    TIME: 31;       AGE: 19;    COUNTRY: PL;   }
 9: {     USER: tim;      SCORE: 1000;    TIME: 30;       AGE: 17;    COUNTRY: UK;   }
 keySort: {  }

(using a print function from here)

here it all is in a jsbin example.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.