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The sort()
method sorts the elements of an array in place and returns the array. The sort is not necessarily stable. The default sort order is according to string Unicode code points.
Syntax
arr.sort([compareFunction])
Parameters
compareFunction
- Optional. Specifies a function that defines the sort order. If omitted, the array is sorted according to each character's Unicode code point value, according to the string conversion of each element.
Return value
The sorted array.
Description
If compareFunction
is not supplied, elements are sorted by converting them to strings and comparing strings in Unicode code point order. For example, "Banana" comes before "cherry". In a numeric sort, 9 comes before 80, but because numbers are converted to strings, "80" comes before "9" in Unicode order.
var fruit = ['cherries', 'apples', 'bananas']; fruit.sort(); // ['apples', 'bananas', 'cherries'] var scores = [1, 10, 21, 2]; scores.sort(); // [1, 10, 2, 21] // Watch out that 10 comes before 2, // because '10' comes before '2' in Unicode code point order. var things = ['word', 'Word', '1 Word', '2 Words']; things.sort(); // ['1 Word', '2 Words', 'Word', 'word'] // In Unicode, numbers come before upper case letters, // which come before lower case letters.
If compareFunction
is supplied, the array elements are sorted according to the return value of the compare function. If a
and b
are two elements being compared, then:
- If
compareFunction(a, b)
is less than 0, sorta
to a lower index thanb
, i.e.a
comes first. - If
compareFunction(a, b)
returns 0, leavea
andb
unchanged with respect to each other, but sorted with respect to all different elements. Note: the ECMAscript standard does not guarantee this behaviour, and thus not all browsers (e.g. Mozilla versions dating back to at least 2003) respect this. - If
compareFunction(a, b)
is greater than 0, sortb
to a lower index thana
. compareFunction(a, b)
must always return the same value when given a specific pair of elements a and b as its two arguments. If inconsistent results are returned then the sort order is undefined.
So, the compare function has the following form:
function compare(a, b) { if (a is less than b by some ordering criterion) { return -1; } if (a is greater than b by the ordering criterion) { return 1; } // a must be equal to b return 0; }
To compare numbers instead of strings, the compare function can simply subtract b
from a
. The following function will sort the array ascending (if it doesn't contain Infinity
and NaN
):
function compareNumbers(a, b) { return a - b; }
The sort
method can be conveniently used with function expressions (and closures):
var numbers = [4, 2, 5, 1, 3]; numbers.sort(function(a, b) { return a - b; }); console.log(numbers); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Objects can be sorted given the value of one of their properties.
var items = [ { name: 'Edward', value: 21 }, { name: 'Sharpe', value: 37 }, { name: 'And', value: 45 }, { name: 'The', value: -12 }, { name: 'Magnetic' }, { name: 'Zeros', value: 37 } ]; // sort by value items.sort(function (a, b) { if (a.value > b.value) { return 1; } if (a.value < b.value) { return -1; } // a must be equal to b return 0; }); // sort by name items.sort(function(a, b) { var nameA = a.name.toUpperCase(); // ignore upper and lowercase var nameB = b.name.toUpperCase(); // ignore upper and lowercase if (nameA < nameB) { return -1; } if (nameA > nameB) { return 1; } // names must be equal return 0; });
Examples
Creating, displaying, and sorting an array
The following example creates four arrays and displays the original array, then the sorted arrays. The numeric arrays are sorted without, then with, a compare function.
var stringArray = ['Blue', 'Humpback', 'Beluga']; var numericStringArray = ['80', '9', '700']; var numberArray = [40, 1, 5, 200]; var mixedNumericArray = ['80', '9', '700', 40, 1, 5, 200]; function compareNumbers(a, b) { return a - b; } console.log('stringArray:', stringArray.join()); console.log('Sorted:', stringArray.sort()); console.log('numberArray:', numberArray.join()); console.log('Sorted without a compare function:', numberArray.sort()); console.log('Sorted with compareNumbers:', numberArray.sort(compareNumbers)); console.log('numericStringArray:', numericStringArray.join()); console.log('Sorted without a compare function:', numericStringArray.sort()); console.log('Sorted with compareNumbers:', numericStringArray.sort(compareNumbers)); console.log('mixedNumericArray:', mixedNumericArray.join()); console.log('Sorted without a compare function:', mixedNumericArray.sort()); console.log('Sorted with compareNumbers:', mixedNumericArray.sort(compareNumbers));
This example produces the following output. As the output shows, when a compare function is used, numbers sort correctly whether they are numbers or numeric strings.
stringArray: Blue,Humpback,Beluga Sorted: Beluga,Blue,Humpback numberArray: 40,1,5,200 Sorted without a compare function: 1,200,40,5 Sorted with compareNumbers: 1,5,40,200 numericStringArray: 80,9,700 Sorted without a compare function: 700,80,9 Sorted with compareNumbers: 9,80,700 mixedNumericArray: 80,9,700,40,1,5,200 Sorted without a compare function: 1,200,40,5,700,80,9 Sorted with compareNumbers: 1,5,9,40,80,200,700
Sorting non-ASCII characters
For sorting strings with non-ASCII characters, i.e. strings with accented characters (e, é, è, a, ä, etc.), strings from languages other than English: use String.localeCompare
. This function can compare those characters so they appear in the right order.
var items = ['réservé', 'premier', 'cliché', 'communiqué', 'café', 'adieu']; items.sort(function (a, b) { return a.localeCompare(b); }); // items is ['adieu', 'café', 'cliché', 'communiqué', 'premier', 'réservé']
Sorting with map
The compareFunction
can be invoked multiple times per element within the array. Depending on the compareFunction
's nature, this may yield a high overhead. The more work a compareFunction
does and the more elements there are to sort, the wiser it may be to consider using a map for sorting. The idea is to walk the array once to extract the actual values used for sorting into a temporary array, sort the temporary array and then walk the temporary array to achieve the right order.
// the array to be sorted var list = ['Delta', 'alpha', 'CHARLIE', 'bravo']; // temporary array holds objects with position and sort-value var mapped = list.map(function(el, i) { return { index: i, value: el.toLowerCase() }; }) // sorting the mapped array containing the reduced values mapped.sort(function(a, b) { return +(a.value > b.value) || +(a.value === b.value) - 1; }); // container for the resulting order var result = mapped.map(function(el){ return list[el.index]; });
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
ECMAScript 1st Edition (ECMA-262) | Standard | Initial definition. |
ECMAScript 5.1 (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Array.prototype.sort' in that specification. |
Standard | |
ECMAScript 2015 (6th Edition, ECMA-262) The definition of 'Array.prototype.sort' in that specification. |
Standard | |
ECMAScript 2017 Draft (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Array.prototype.sort' in that specification. |
Draft |
Browser compatibility
Feature | Chrome | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | 1.0 | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) | 5.5 | (Yes) | (Yes) |
Feature | Android | Chrome for Android | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |