Define fixed sort order in JavaScript

Question

I haven't found something in my research so I thought someone can help me here.

My problem is that I want to sort an array of objects which contains a status:

{
    "data":[
        {
            "status":"NEW"
        },
        {
            "status":"PREP"
        },
        {
            "status":"CLOS"
        },
        {
            "status":"END"
        },
        {
            "status":"ERR"
        },
        {
            "status":"PAUS"
        }
    ]
}

Now I want to set a fixed sort order like all objects with the status "END" coming first then all objects with the status "PREP" and so on.

Is there a way to do that in JavaScript?

Thanks in advance :)

[`Array.prototype.sort()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/sort). (The documentation says it all). — Ismael Miguel, Jan 06 '16 at 11:24
try groupBy from underscoreJS. http://underscorejs.org/#groupBy OR try http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14592799/object-array-group-by-an-element — Vishal Rajole, Jan 06 '16 at 11:27

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 06 '16 at 11:27

14

It's a pretty simple comparison operation using a standard .sort() callback:

var preferredOrder = ['END', 'ERR', ..];
myArray.sort(function (a, b) {
    return preferredOrder.indexOf(a.status) - preferredOrder.indexOf(b.status);
});

answered Jan 06 '16 at 11:27

deceze

510,633
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Thanks! That was exactly what I have been looking for! – Marschi Jan 06 '16 at 11:34

Nina Scholz · Answer 2 · 2016-01-06T12:24:15.003

2

You can use an object with their order values and sort it then.

var obj = { "data": [{ "status": "NEW" }, { "status": "PREP" }, { "status": "CLOS" }, { "status": "END" }, { "status": "ERR" }, { "status": "PAUS" }] };

obj.data.sort(function (a, b) {
    var ORDER = { END: 1, PREP: 2, PAUS: 3, CLOS: 4, ERR: 5, NEW: 6 };
    return (ORDER[a.status] || 0) - (ORDER[b.status] || 0);
});

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(obj, 0, 4) + '</pre>');

edited Jan 06 '16 at 12:24

answered Jan 06 '16 at 11:27

Nina Scholz

376,160
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392

2

Key lookup is indeed more efficient than my `indexOf`... :) – deceze Jan 06 '16 at 11:29

Define fixed sort order in JavaScript

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