Sorting Array but keeping Original Index

Question

I have an array of indexes, called indexSelected. There is also an array of objects called weather. I have put all of the Site Names that that I am dealing with into an array called stationName. I want to sort this array alphabetically whilst keeping the original indexes for that I can refer back to the other properties associated with object. I have tried the method below, however, I cannot seem to get it to work.

var stationName=[];
for (var i=0; i<indexSelected.length; i++) {
    stationName.push(weather[indexSelected[i]]["Site Name"]);    
}

var copyStationName = stationName.slice(0)
var sortedStationName = stationName.sort();
var originalIndex=[];
for (var i=0; i<stationName.length; i++) {
   originalIndex.push(copyStationName.indexOf(sortedStationName[i]))
}

var station=[];
for (var i=0; i<indexSelected.length; i++) {
    station.push(weather[originalIndex[i]]["Site Name"]);
}

This station array was to check that the originalIndexes array was correct. It isn't, and I don't know why. I would appreciate some help, or another way to sort this array. I'm looking to put all of the data into a table, sort alphabetically by site name. Thanks

provide a demo in jsfiddle.net , a lot easier to troubleshoot when data visible and can use browser console for debugging — charlietfl
– charlietfl, Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 19:50
This sounds like asort() in PHP. There's a JS version of that here. — h2ooooooo
– h2ooooooo, Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 19:55

broofa · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-13 19:53:50Z

3

Build an array of objects that carry both the name and index, then use a custom comparison function for the sort. E.g.

var stationInfo = [];
for (var i=0; i<indexSelected.length; i++) {
  var idx = indexSelected[i];
  stationInfo.push({name: weather[idx]["Site Name"], idx: idx);    
}

stationInfo.sort(function(a, b) {
  // a & b are the array items (info objects) created above, so make 'em
  // point at the `name` property we want to sort by
  a = a.name;
  b = b.name;
  // ... then return -1/0/1 to reflect relative ordering
  return a < b ? -1 : (a > b ? 1 : 0);
})

// output a name + index pair
console.log(stationInfo[0].name, stationInfo[0].idx);

answered Nov 13, 2013 at 19:53

broofa

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