Javascript - arrays sorting

Question

I have two arrays:

keys_array   = [2,4,5,8,9]
values_array = ['two','four','five','eight','nine']

I need to get:

#transitional result
#values sorted alphabetically
sorted_by_value_name_array = [
  ['8','eight'],
  ['5','five'],
  ['4','four'],
  ['9','nine'],
  ['2','two']
]

#final result  
sorted_keys_array = [8,5,4,9,2]

How can i achieve this with javascript or jQuery?

@Shef I assume he needs to combine the arrays, sort by values and return the keys of the sorted array. — JJJ
– JJJ, Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 10:58

Andy · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-11 11:11:44Z

4

var keys_array   = [2,4,5,8,9];
var values_array = ['two','four','five','eight','nine'];
var new_array = [];
for(var i=0; i<keys_array.length; i++){
    new_array.push([keys_array[i],values_array[i]]);
}

console.log(new_array.sort(function(a,b){ return a[1] < b[1] ? -1 : 1; }));

answered Sep 11, 2011 at 11:11

Andy

30.2k9 gold badges43 silver badges59 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

mekwall · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-11 11:40:28Z

3

The answer by Andy is great, but what if your keys and values are not fully aligned? Then you'll need JavaScript to be able to interpret strings into numbers.

I found a working words to numbers converter by Stephen Chapman. By utilizing this in another function we can have more or less any numerical words and combine these with the corresponding number. And they don't even have to be aligned in the first place.

// paste the toWords function here
function naturalCombine(numbers, words) {
    var numberCount = numbers.length,
        combined = [];
    for (var i=0; i < numberCount; i++) {
        var word = toWords(numbers[i]).trim(),
            found = words[words.indexOf(word)];
        if (found)
            combined.push([numbers[i], found]);
        else
            combined.push([numbers[i], "unknown"]);
    }
    return combined;
}

var keysArray = ["4", "62", "2", "94", "5", "9", "8", "87", "1674"];
var valuesArray = ["two", "one thousand six hundred seventy four", "four", 
                   "five", "eight", "nine", "eighty seven", "ninety four"];

var combined = naturalCombine(keysArray, valuesArray);

Check test case on jsFiddle

edited Sep 11, 2011 at 11:40

answered Sep 11, 2011 at 11:16

mekwall

29.1k6 gold badges78 silver badges77 bronze badges

2 Comments

Andy Over a year ago

Yea but the example with the number-words was probably just to explain his problem and in his real code he uses some other values. :)

mekwall Over a year ago

@Andy, probably. Hopefully someone else will have use of my answer ;)

Shef · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-11 11:18:13Z

2

var keys_array = [2,4,5,8,9],
    values_array = ['two','four','five','eight','nine'];

var svalues = values_array.slice().sort(), // copy array and sort it
    skeys = [];

for(var i = 0, s = svalues.length; i < s; i++){
    skeys.push(keys_array[values_array.indexOf(svalues[i])]);
}

Demo

You will need to extend the array prototype with indexOf() for it to work with browsers which do not support it.

answered Sep 11, 2011 at 11:18

Shef

45.6k15 gold badges82 silver badges91 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Javascript - arrays sorting

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related