Definition and Usage The sort() method is used to sort the elements of an array. Syntax arrayObject.sort(sortby) Parameter ...
Definition and Usage
The sort() method is used to sort the elements of an array.
Syntax
| Parameter | Description |
| sortby | Optional. Specifies the sort order. Must be a function |
Tips and Notes
Note: The sort() method will sort the elements alphabetically by default. However, this means that numbers will not be sorted correctly (40 comes before 5). To sort numbers, you must create a function that compare numbers.
Note: After using the sort() method, the array is changed.
Example 1
In this example we will create an array and sort it alphabetically:
<script type="text/javascript"> var arr = new Array(6);
arr[0] = "Jani";
arr[1] = "Hege";
arr[2] = "Stale";
arr[3] = "Kai Jim";
arr[4] = "Borge";
arr[5] = "Tove"; document.write(arr + "<br />");
document.write(arr.sort()); </script> |
The output of the code above will be:
Jani,Hege,Stale,Kai Jim,Borge,Tove
Borge,Hege,Jani,Kai Jim,Stale,Tove |
Example 2
In this example we will create an array containing numbers and sort it:
<script type="text/javascript"> var arr = new Array(6);
arr[0] = "10";
arr[1] = "5";
arr[2] = "40";
arr[3] = "25";
arr[4] = "1000";
arr[5] = "1"; document.write(arr + "<br />");
document.write(arr.sort()); </script> |
The output of the code above will be:
10,5,40,25,1000,1
1,10,1000,25,40,5 |
Note that the numbers above are NOT sorted correctly (by numeric value). To solve this problem, we must add a function that handles this problem:
<script type="text/javascript"> function sortNumber(a,b)
{
return a - b;
}var arr = new Array(6);
arr[0] = "10";
arr[1] = "5";
arr[2] = "40";
arr[3] = "25";
arr[4] = "1000";
arr[5] = "1"; document.write(arr + "<br />");
document.write(arr.sort(sortNumber)); </script> |
The output of the code above will be:
10,5,40,25,1000,1
1,5,10,25,40,1000 |
