I have an array that must be sorted with low number to high number and then alphabetical order. Must use Array#sort_by
i_want_dogs = ["I", "want", 5, "dogs", "but", "only", "have", 3]
I want it to output:
=> [3,5,"I","but","dogs","have","only","want"]
I tried:
i_want_dogs.sort_by {|x,y| x <=> y }
I know that is obviously wrong, but I can't figure it out with the integers and the strings combined.
Use the sort method with a block that defines a comparator that does what you want. I wrote a simple one that compares values when the classes are the same and class names when they are different.
def comparator(x, y)
if x.class == y.class
return x <=> y
else
return x.class.to_s <=> y.class.to_s
end
end
Use it like this:
i_want_dogs.sort { |x, y| comparator(x, y) }
Use partition to separate numbers from strings, sort each separately and join the final result, e.g.
i_want_dogs.partition { |i| i.is_a?(Fixnum) }.map(&:sort).flatten
This will give you the result:
i_want_dogs.sort_by {|x| x.to_s }
UPDATE:
Thanks @vacawama who points out that it will sort numbers alphabetically. If you need to sort number by it's value, other answers will be something you need to try.
downcase should it be case-insensitive, e.g. x.to_s.downcase
First you need to convert the elements in the array to a string. Try this
i_want_dogs.sort_by(&:to_s)
This will return
[3,5,"I", "but", "dogs", "have", "only" "want"]
i_want_dogs.sort_by { |x, y| y.to_i <=> x.to_i }should get you pretty close, but the "I" is at the end.