Generic way of sorting JSON array by attribute

Question

I found out how to sort a JSON array at http://www.devcurry.com/2010/05/sorting-json-array.html

Now I want to sort it in a generic way; so that my sorting function knows which attribute to sort by.

For example if my array is

[
  {
    "name": "John",
    "age": "16"
  },
  {
    "name": "Charles",
    "age": "26"
  }
]

I want to avoid writing different if cases to know if I should sort by name or age. I just want to pass a parameter 'name' or 'age' and my sorting function should know what to do.

Thanks.

So have you tried anything? The article you linked and what you actually want to do have nothing to do with JSON, by the way; you are manipulating regular Javascript data structures, while JSON is a string serialization of such structures. — lanzz
– lanzz, Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 11:05

Engineer · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-14 10:22:59Z

81

Something like a:

function predicateBy(prop){
   return function(a,b){
      if (a[prop] > b[prop]){
          return 1;
      } else if(a[prop] < b[prop]){
          return -1;
      }
      return 0;
   }
}

//Usage
yourArray.sort( predicateBy("age") );
yourArray.sort( predicateBy("name") );

edited Oct 14, 2019 at 10:22

answered Jun 19, 2012 at 11:07

Engineer

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3 Comments

Anand Over a year ago

@Engineer: Is this currying ? Nice one though + 1

PositiveGuy Over a year ago

how is this exactly working? what's being assigned to a and what's being assigned to b and how?

Engineer Over a year ago

@WeDoTDD See the Array.sort docs

agershun · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-18 10:24:04Z

5

You can sort arrays by any field with Alasql library:

var data = [{"name":"John", "age":"16"}, {"name":"Charles", "age":"26"}];

var res1 = alasql('SELECT * FROM ? ORDER BY name',[data]);
var res2 = alasql('SELECT * FROM ? ORDER BY age',[data]);
var res3 = alasql('SELECT * FROM ? ORDER BY age, name',[data]);
var res4 = alasql('SELECT * FROM ? ORDER BY age DESC, name ASC',[data]);

Try this example in jsFiddle.

answered Dec 18, 2014 at 10:24

agershun

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1 Comment

Ali Khan Over a year ago

This should be the accepted answer, This helps provides all sql functionalities besides only sorting.. works wonders much thanks !! :)

Anand · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-19 11:09:49Z

4

See this example http://jsfiddle.net/W8Byu/1/

What I have done is stored the sort column Name in a variable and used in Sort function.

 var sortColumnName = "Name";

 function SortByName(x,y) {
      return ((x[sortColumnName]  == y[sortColumnName]) ? 0 : ((x[sortColumnName]>    y[sortColumnName]) ? 1 : -1 ));
    }

answered Jun 19, 2012 at 11:09

Anand

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