I realize this was asked some time ago, but I thought I would add my solution.
This function generates sort methods dynamically. simply supply each sortable child property name, prepended with +/- to indicate ascending or descending order. Super re-usable, and it doesn't need to know anything about the data structure you've put together. Could be made idiot proof - but doesn't seem necessary.
function getSortMethod(){
var _args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
return function(a, b){
for(var x in _args){
var ax = a[_args[x].substring(1)];
var bx = b[_args[x].substring(1)];
var cx;
ax = typeof ax == "string" ? ax.toLowerCase() : ax / 1;
bx = typeof bx == "string" ? bx.toLowerCase() : bx / 1;
if(_args[x].substring(0,1) == "-"){cx = ax; ax = bx; bx = cx;}
if(ax != bx){return ax < bx ? -1 : 1;}
}
}
}
example usage:
items.sort(getSortMethod('-price', '+priority', '+name'));
this would sort items
with lowest price
first, with ties going to the item with the highest priority
. further ties are broken by the item name
where items is an array like:
var items = [
{ name: "z - test item", price: "99.99", priority: 0, reviews: 309, rating: 2 },
{ name: "z - test item", price: "1.99", priority: 0, reviews: 11, rating: 0.5 },
{ name: "y - test item", price: "99.99", priority: 1, reviews: 99, rating: 1 },
{ name: "y - test item", price: "0", priority: 1, reviews: 394, rating: 3.5 },
{ name: "x - test item", price: "0", priority: 2, reviews: 249, rating: 0.5 } ...
];
live demo: http://gregtaff.com/misc/multi_field_sort/
EDIT: Fixed issue with Chrome.