Sort multidimensional array in JavaScript

Question

I need to sort an array containing arrays in ascending numerical order. The data structure looks like this

array = [[escalation],//integer
         [name],
         [email],
         [blackberry]];

I try to sort the array using this function (sorting by escalation)

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

But my output still looks incorrect...

0 0 10 12 14 16 18 20 20 8

Any advice on how to fix this?

It should be an int, but apparently it was being read in as a string. Makes since, since I get it from the XML as .text() — Mark Cheek
– Mark Cheek, Commented Aug 10, 2010 at 14:53

Jeff · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-10 14:44:32Z

1

From the sort output you provided, it looks like JavaScript is reading the array elements as strings. See if parseInt works:

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

answered Aug 10, 2010 at 14:44

Jeff

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3 Comments

Ryan Kinal Over a year ago

You may want to add the radix parameter to parseInt as well: parseInt(a[0], 10) - this forces it to parse as base 10.

Mark Cheek Over a year ago

That fixed it! Thanks!! I'll mark it as answer as soon as it lets me

Andy E Over a year ago

Unary + is handy here too. e.g. if (+a[0] < +b[0]). Neater than parseInt, IMO, and doesn't have the issue with the radix. stackoverflow.com/questions/61088/hidden-features-of-javascript/…

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