366

From this original question, how would I apply a sort on multiple fields?

Using this slightly adapted structure, how would I sort city (ascending) & then price (descending)?

var homes = [
    {"h_id":"3",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75201",
     "price":"162500"},
    {"h_id":"4",
     "city":"Bevery Hills",
     "state":"CA",
     "zip":"90210",
     "price":"319250"},
    {"h_id":"6",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75000",
     "price":"556699"},
    {"h_id":"5",
     "city":"New York",
     "state":"NY",
     "zip":"00010",
     "price":"962500"}
    ];

I liked the fact than an answer was given which provided a general approach. Where I plan to use this code, I will have to sort dates as well as other things. The ability to "prime" the object seemed handy, if not a little cumbersome.

I've tried to build this answer into a nice generic example, but I'm not having much luck.

Community
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Mike
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  • Do you want to search or sort? – Felix Kling Aug 02 '11 at 14:17
  • What exactly is the issue you're having with using the second answer you've linked? – canon Aug 02 '11 at 14:18
  • It's not generic enough. I seem to be adding a sea of code when I simply would like to say `sort(["first-field", "ASC"], ["second-field", "DSC"]);` This is further complicated when I try to add in the "primer" logic of the first answer so that I can handle dates, case-insensitivity etc. – Mike Aug 02 '11 at 14:26
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    You can check https://lodash.com/docs/4.17.11#orderBy , if you are ok using lodash – Deepanshu Arora May 21 '19 at 12:09
  • The pattern for [sorting by properties](/q/2466356/4642212) is `homes.sort((a, b) =>`…`)` with `a.prop` and `b.prop`. `a.prop - b.prop` sorts [numerically](/q/7889006/4642212), `a.prop.localeCompare(b.prop)` [lexicographically](/q/1129216/4642212), and `(b.prop < a.prop) - (a.prop < b.prop)` generically. To sort descending instead of ascending, negate the return value (e.g. `b.prop - a.prop` instead of `a.prop - b.prop`). – Sebastian Simon Apr 10 '22 at 12:04

41 Answers41

390

You could use a chained sorting approach by taking the delta of values until it reaches a value not equal to zero.

var data = [{ h_id: "3", city: "Dallas", state: "TX", zip: "75201", price: "162500" }, { h_id: "4", city: "Bevery Hills", state: "CA", zip: "90210", price: "319250" }, { h_id: "6", city: "Dallas", state: "TX", zip: "75000", price: "556699" }, { h_id: "5", city: "New York", state: "NY", zip: "00010", price: "962500" }];

data.sort(function (a, b) {
    return a.city.localeCompare(b.city) || b.price - a.price;
});

console.log(data);
.as-console-wrapper { max-height: 100% !important; top: 0; }

Or, using es6, simply:

data.sort((a, b) => a.city.localeCompare(b.city) || b.price - a.price);
Nina Scholz
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    Am I missing something? Why use 60 lines of code for something that can be done in 1. Simple, clear, concise. Should be the accepted answer IMO. – Erez Cohen Apr 12 '19 at 12:23
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    one of the big issues now of SO is that old answers - often well superseded by better solutions using new language features (e.g. ES5-6-7) maintain their old scores, and we all have to scroll down to find the "real" best solutions! SO should expire votes over time to address this, because the problem is getting ever worse as time passes. – Andy Lorenz Apr 29 '20 at 17:42
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    @AndyLorenz Completely agree. Many ways to resolve this issue. For example, a user setting to minimize answers older than x years when there are more than y answers above z rating. An even simpler start would be to add a "Newest" option to the sort buttons. – OXiGEN Sep 21 '20 at 21:51
  • Combined with another answer to suit my needs - a - z on multiple properties: `return a.status.localeCompare(b.status) || a.name > b.name ? 1 : a.name < b.name ? -1 : 0;` – Sebastian Thomas Feb 24 '21 at 11:13
  • @AndyLorenz Aware of any meta questios on this? – geotheory Mar 11 '21 at 22:19
  • Maybe these: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/272570/how-to-deal-with-hugely-upvoted-bad-and-outdated-answers https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/272651/introduce-an-obsolete-answer-vote – geotheory Mar 13 '21 at 00:12
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    what about if order by desc? – Garrod Ran May 18 '21 at 15:42
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    @GarrodRan, switch a and b. – Nina Scholz May 18 '21 at 15:45
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    This is a nice answer - very concise! Maybe worth explaining that it works because zero - as returned by localeCompare() when the two values match - is falsey, while -1 and +1 are truthy. – Dan King Sep 10 '21 at 13:48
  • @AndyLorenz well, perhaps not expire the old votes, but simply weight them by age. But yes. Of course, the question is - were they even storing the timestamp of the votes? – Anomaly Sep 23 '21 at 17:16
  • @Anomaly, yes the timestamp is stored, you can see it [here](https://stackoverflow.com/posts/46256174/timeline?filter=WithVoteSummaries), for this answer, for example ... (maybe you need some [privileges](https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges) for it ...) – Nina Scholz Sep 23 '21 at 17:28
  • @NinaScholz ah yes! there it is. neat. – Anomaly Sep 23 '21 at 18:45
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    This is a better solution than my proposal. Good, clean, and fun! – Snowburnt Feb 16 '22 at 15:06
  • If you want to compare numeric string values using `localeCompare`: `a.score.localeCompare(b.score, undefined, { numeric: true })` – Marnix.hoh Jun 30 '22 at 07:48
  • If one of the field's is a number and you only want to sort by whether it's 0 or greater, then use `(b.EstimatedItems > 0) - (a.EstimatedItems > 0) || a.Label.localeCompare(b.Label))`. This will sort values with 0 to the bottom first and then sort by the string column. – Zei Jul 07 '23 at 05:09
319

for a non-generic, simple solution to your exact problem:

homes.sort(
   function(a, b) {          
      if (a.city === b.city) {
         // Price is only important when cities are the same
         return b.price - a.price;
      }
      return a.city > b.city ? 1 : -1;
   });
3limin4t0r
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Snowburnt
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    I think this demo is what the OP wants => http://jsfiddle.net/zJ6UA/533/ – Amin Jafari Nov 24 '16 at 11:27
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    @Snowburnt Your updated answer is incorrect for a different reason. The comparison function needs to return a negative value if value `a` would be ordered before `b`, 0 if they would be ordered equally, and a positive value if `a` would be ordered after `b`. Your function only returns `false` or `true` when comparing the cities, and never a negative value. – JLRishe Feb 12 '18 at 15:06
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    You may use `a.localeCompare(b)` in the last line for the string compare... [see the docs](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/localeCompare) – Michael P Feb 27 '18 at 20:25
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    Shouldn't the first city comparison be checking for equality, not inequality? In other words, shouldn't the line be `if (a.city === b.city)`? That is, if the two cities are the same then compare the prices, otherwise compare the cities. – Steven Rands Jul 19 '18 at 15:15
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    very elegant. It would be nice if javascript has a sortBy and a following thenSortBy like LINQ. – howardlo Feb 13 '19 at 21:25
  • Using a ternary operator with `.sort` can cause bugs in some browsers (eg Firefox) since browsers expect it to return 0 if the values are equal. Using `a.localeCompare(b)` is a much safer option. – Andre OBrien Nov 01 '22 at 01:38
91

Here is a simple functional generic approach. Specify sort order using array. Prepend minus to specify descending order.

var homes = [
    {"h_id":"3", "city":"Dallas", "state":"TX","zip":"75201","price":"162500"},
    {"h_id":"4","city":"Bevery Hills", "state":"CA", "zip":"90210", "price":"319250"},
    {"h_id":"6", "city":"Dallas", "state":"TX", "zip":"75000", "price":"556699"},
    {"h_id":"5", "city":"New York", "state":"NY", "zip":"00010", "price":"962500"}
    ];

homes.sort(fieldSorter(['city', '-price']));
// homes.sort(fieldSorter(['zip', '-state', 'price'])); // alternative

function fieldSorter(fields) {
    return function (a, b) {
        return fields
            .map(function (o) {
                var dir = 1;
                if (o[0] === '-') {
                   dir = -1;
                   o=o.substring(1);
                }
                if (a[o] > b[o]) return dir;
                if (a[o] < b[o]) return -(dir);
                return 0;
            })
            .reduce(function firstNonZeroValue (p,n) {
                return p ? p : n;
            }, 0);
    };
}

Edit: in ES6 it's even shorter!

"use strict";
const fieldSorter = (fields) => (a, b) => fields.map(o => {
    let dir = 1;
    if (o[0] === '-') { dir = -1; o=o.substring(1); }
    return a[o] > b[o] ? dir : a[o] < b[o] ? -(dir) : 0;
}).reduce((p, n) => p ? p : n, 0);

const homes = [{"h_id":"3", "city":"Dallas", "state":"TX","zip":"75201","price":162500},     {"h_id":"4","city":"Bevery Hills", "state":"CA", "zip":"90210", "price":319250},{"h_id":"6", "city":"Dallas", "state":"TX", "zip":"75000", "price":556699},{"h_id":"5", "city":"New York", "state":"NY", "zip":"00010", "price":962500}];
const sortedHomes = homes.sort(fieldSorter(['state', '-price']));

document.write('<pre>' + JSON.stringify(sortedHomes, null, '\t') + '</pre>')
chriskelly
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    I found this function pretty neat so I made a small performance improvement of up to 90% depending on the parser. I made a [gist](https://gist.github.com/manix/a2160e7084c5c7fef5431af359fb342e) and [test suite](https://jsperf.com/fieldsorter). – php_nub_qq Sep 21 '17 at 17:18
  • Based on the sample data it looks like numbers are sorted as expected, however when I tried implementing this numbers where sorting more like strings... `[10,100,11,9]`. Did I miss something? – Mark Carpenter Jr Nov 27 '17 at 18:47
  • @MarkCarpenterJr. Not sure what you mean. my example sorts numeric types correctly. Can you share your implementation as a question and reference me in the comments so I see it? Then I can check. – chriskelly Nov 27 '17 at 23:35
  • @MarkCarpenterJr. Just spotted it. I've added an explanation in the comments. – chriskelly Nov 29 '17 at 20:46
91

A multi dimensional sorting method, based on this answer:

Update: Here is an "optimized" version. It does a lot more preprocessing and creates a comparison function for each sorting option beforehand. It might need more more memory (as it stores a function for each sorting option, but it should preform a bit better as it does not have to determine the correct settings during the comparison. I have not done any profiling though.

var sort_by;

(function() {
    // utility functions
    var default_cmp = function(a, b) {
            if (a == b) return 0;
            return a < b ? -1 : 1;
        },
        getCmpFunc = function(primer, reverse) {
            var dfc = default_cmp, // closer in scope
                cmp = default_cmp;
            if (primer) {
                cmp = function(a, b) {
                    return dfc(primer(a), primer(b));
                };
            }
            if (reverse) {
                return function(a, b) {
                    return -1 * cmp(a, b);
                };
            }
            return cmp;
        };

    // actual implementation
    sort_by = function() {
        var fields = [],
            n_fields = arguments.length,
            field, name, reverse, cmp;

        // preprocess sorting options
        for (var i = 0; i < n_fields; i++) {
            field = arguments[i];
            if (typeof field === 'string') {
                name = field;
                cmp = default_cmp;
            }
            else {
                name = field.name;
                cmp = getCmpFunc(field.primer, field.reverse);
            }
            fields.push({
                name: name,
                cmp: cmp
            });
        }

        // final comparison function
        return function(A, B) {
            var a, b, name, result;
            for (var i = 0; i < n_fields; i++) {
                result = 0;
                field = fields[i];
                name = field.name;

                result = field.cmp(A[name], B[name]);
                if (result !== 0) break;
            }
            return result;
        }
    }
}());

Example usage:

homes.sort(sort_by('city', {name:'price', primer: parseInt, reverse: true}));

DEMO


Original function:

var sort_by = function() {
   var fields = [].slice.call(arguments),
       n_fields = fields.length;

   return function(A,B) {
       var a, b, field, key, primer, reverse, result, i;

       for(i = 0; i < n_fields; i++) {
           result = 0;
           field = fields[i];

           key = typeof field === 'string' ? field : field.name;

           a = A[key];
           b = B[key];

           if (typeof field.primer  !== 'undefined'){
               a = field.primer(a);
               b = field.primer(b);
           }

           reverse = (field.reverse) ? -1 : 1;

           if (a<b) result = reverse * -1;
           if (a>b) result = reverse * 1;
           if(result !== 0) break;
       }
       return result;
   }
};

DEMO

Community
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Felix Kling
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    For the record, this function could still be improved by preprocessing the argument list and create a uniform "sort options array". This is left as exercise for the reader ;) – Felix Kling Aug 05 '11 at 13:38
  • @Mike: Ok... finally ;) You see it is more complex now, as the options are preprocessed, but the final comparison function (see comment) is much simpler which (hopefully) leads to better performance. The more sorting options you have, the more advantage you have from this method. – Felix Kling Aug 05 '11 at 14:22
35

I made a quite generic multi feature sorter today. You can have a look at thenBy.js here: https://github.com/Teun/thenBy.js

It allows you to use the standard Array.sort, but with firstBy().thenBy().thenBy() style. It is way less code and complexity than the solutions posted above.

Teun D
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    Well, when you call 3 times, the 2nd call is not guaranteed to leave the order of the first one untouched for items where the second call does not make a difference. – Teun D Aug 04 '13 at 20:35
25

To sort an array of objects by multiple fields:

homes.sort(function(left, right) {
    var city_order = left.city.localeCompare(right.city);
    var price_order = parseInt(left.price) - parseInt(right.price);
    return city_order || -price_order;
});

Notes

  • A function passed to array sort is expected to return negative/zero/positive to indicate less/equal/greater.
  • a.localeCompare(b) is universally supported for strings, and returns -1,0,1 if a<b,a==b,a>b.
  • Subtraction works on numeric fields, because a - b gives -,0,+ if a<b,a==b,a>b.
  • || in the last line gives city priority over price.
  • Negate to reverse order in any field, as in -price_order
  • Add new fields to the or-chain: return city_order || -price_order || date_order;
  • Date compare with subtraction, because date math converts to milliseconds since 1970.
    var date_order = new Date(left.date) - new Date(right.date); CAUTION: Date() returns a string, and is freakishly different from the new Date() constructor.
  • Boolean compare with subtraction, which is guaranteed to turn true and false to 1 and 0 (therefore the subtraction produces -1 or 0 or 1).
    var goodness_order = Boolean(left.is_good) - Boolean(right.is_good)
    Sorting on a boolean is unusual enough that I suggest drawing attention with the Boolean() constructor, even if they're already boolean.
Bob Stein
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  • This is really nice. How do you compare booleans… err convert boolean comparisons to -1, 0, 1? – Sukima Jan 16 '21 at 14:51
  • This answer is amazing. A complete ordering master class. Thanks for the detailed explanation. – equiman Apr 25 '23 at 07:29
19

This is a complete cheat but I think that it adds value to this question because it's basically a canned library function that you can use out-of-the box.

If your code has access to lodash or a lodash compatible library like underscore then you can use the _.sortBy method. The snippet below is copied directly from the lodash documentation.

The commented results in the examples looks like they return arrays of arrays but that's just showing the order and not the actual results which are an array of objects.

var users = [
  { 'user': 'fred',   'age': 48 },
  { 'user': 'barney', 'age': 36 },
  { 'user': 'fred',   'age': 40 },
  { 'user': 'barney', 'age': 34 }
];

_.sortBy(users, [function(o) { return o.user; }]);
 // => objects for [['barney', 36], ['barney', 34], ['fred', 48], ['fred', 40]]

_.sortBy(users, ['user', 'age']);
// => objects for [['barney', 34], ['barney', 36], ['fred', 40], ['fred', 48]]
Guy
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16

The following function will allow you to sort an array of objects on one or multiple properties, either ascending (default) or descending on each property, and allow you to choose whether or not to perform case sensitive comparisons. By default, this function performs case insensitive sorts.

The first argument must be the array containing the objects. The subsequent argument(s) must be a comma separated list of strings that reference the different object properties to sort by. The last argument (which is optional) is a boolean to choose whether or not to perform case sensitive sorts - use true for case sensitive sorts.

The function will sort each property/key in ascending order by default. If you want a particular key to sort in descending order, then instead pass in an array in this format: ['property_name', true].

Here are some sample uses of the function followed by an explanation (where homes is an array containing the objects):

objSort(homes, 'city') --> sort by city (ascending, case in-sensitive)

objSort(homes, ['city', true]) --> sort by city (descending, case in-sensitive)

objSort(homes, 'city', true) --> sort by city then price (ascending, case sensitive)

objSort(homes, 'city', 'price') --> sort by city then price (both ascending, case in-sensitive)

objSort(homes, 'city', ['price', true]) --> sort by city (ascending) then price (descending), case in-sensitive)

And without further ado, here's the function:

function objSort() {
    var args = arguments,
        array = args[0],
        case_sensitive, keys_length, key, desc, a, b, i;

    if (typeof arguments[arguments.length - 1] === 'boolean') {
        case_sensitive = arguments[arguments.length - 1];
        keys_length = arguments.length - 1;
    } else {
        case_sensitive = false;
        keys_length = arguments.length;
    }

    return array.sort(function (obj1, obj2) {
        for (i = 1; i < keys_length; i++) {
            key = args[i];
            if (typeof key !== 'string') {
                desc = key[1];
                key = key[0];
                a = obj1[args[i][0]];
                b = obj2[args[i][0]];
            } else {
                desc = false;
                a = obj1[args[i]];
                b = obj2[args[i]];
            }

            if (case_sensitive === false && typeof a === 'string') {
                a = a.toLowerCase();
                b = b.toLowerCase();
            }

            if (! desc) {
                if (a < b) return -1;
                if (a > b) return 1;
            } else {
                if (a > b) return -1;
                if (a < b) return 1;
            }
        }
        return 0;
    });
} //end of objSort() function

And here's some sample data:

var homes = [{
    "h_id": "3",
    "city": "Dallas",
    "state": "TX",
    "zip": "75201",
    "price": 162500
}, {
    "h_id": "4",
    "city": "Bevery Hills",
    "state": "CA",
    "zip": "90210",
    "price": 1000000
}, {
    "h_id": "5",
    "city": "new york",
    "state": "NY",
    "zip": "00010",
    "price": 1000000
}, {
    "h_id": "6",
    "city": "Dallas",
    "state": "TX",
    "zip": "85000",
    "price": 300000
}, {
    "h_id": "7",
    "city": "New York",
    "state": "NY",
    "zip": "00020",
    "price": 345000
}];
Mr. Polywhirl
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jake
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11

A dynamic way to do that with MULTIPLE keys:

  • filter unique values from each col/key of sort
  • put in order or reverse it
  • add weights width zeropad for each object based on indexOf(value) keys values
  • sort using caclutated weights

enter image description here

Object.defineProperty(Array.prototype, 'orderBy', {
value: function(sorts) { 
    sorts.map(sort => {            
        sort.uniques = Array.from(
            new Set(this.map(obj => obj[sort.key]))
        );
        
        sort.uniques = sort.uniques.sort((a, b) => {
            if (typeof a == 'string') {
                return sort.inverse ? b.localeCompare(a) : a.localeCompare(b);
            }
            else if (typeof a == 'number') {
                return sort.inverse ? b - a : a - b;
            }
            else if (typeof a == 'boolean') {
                let x = sort.inverse ? (a === b) ? 0 : a? -1 : 1 : (a === b) ? 0 : a? 1 : -1;
                return x;
            }
            return 0;
        });
    });

    const weightOfObject = (obj) => {
        let weight = "";
        sorts.map(sort => {
            let zeropad = `${sort.uniques.length}`.length;
            weight += sort.uniques.indexOf(obj[sort.key]).toString().padStart(zeropad, '0');
        });
        //obj.weight = weight; // if you need to see weights
        return weight;
    }

    this.sort((a, b) => {
        return weightOfObject(a).localeCompare( weightOfObject(b) );
    });
    
    return this;
}
});

Use:

// works with string, number and boolean
let sortered = your_array.orderBy([
    {key: "type", inverse: false}, 
    {key: "title", inverse: false},
    {key: "spot", inverse: false},
    {key: "internal", inverse: true}
]);

enter image description here

Leonardo Filipe
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  • Look like promising solution but not sure how to use this? I'm doing an angular-ionic project with typescript, in component file how to define this / or add this in project? – Hemang Feb 24 '21 at 05:45
  • hi @Hemang, copy the code to a file like array_object_multiple_order.js, import file to your project, now you can call .orderBy from your array of objects – Leonardo Filipe Feb 25 '21 at 14:38
8

Here's a generic multidimensional sort, allowing for reversing and/or mapping on each level.

Written in Typescript. For Javascript, check out this JSFiddle

The Code

type itemMap = (n: any) => any;

interface SortConfig<T> {
  key: keyof T;
  reverse?: boolean;
  map?: itemMap;
}

export function byObjectValues<T extends object>(keys: ((keyof T) | SortConfig<T>)[]): (a: T, b: T) => 0 | 1 | -1 {
  return function(a: T, b: T) {
    const firstKey: keyof T | SortConfig<T> = keys[0];
    const isSimple = typeof firstKey === 'string';
    const key: keyof T = isSimple ? (firstKey as keyof T) : (firstKey as SortConfig<T>).key;
    const reverse: boolean = isSimple ? false : !!(firstKey as SortConfig<T>).reverse;
    const map: itemMap | null = isSimple ? null : (firstKey as SortConfig<T>).map || null;

    const valA = map ? map(a[key]) : a[key];
    const valB = map ? map(b[key]) : b[key];
    if (valA === valB) {
      if (keys.length === 1) {
        return 0;
      }
      return byObjectValues<T>(keys.slice(1))(a, b);
    }
    if (reverse) {
      return valA > valB ? -1 : 1;
    }
    return valA > valB ? 1 : -1;
  };
}

Usage Examples

Sorting a people array by last name, then first name:

interface Person {
  firstName: string;
  lastName: string;
}

people.sort(byObjectValues<Person>(['lastName','firstName']));

Sort language codes by their name, not their language code (see map), then by descending version (see reverse).

interface Language {
  code: string;
  version: number;
}

// languageCodeToName(code) is defined elsewhere in code

languageCodes.sort(byObjectValues<Language>([
  {
    key: 'code',
    map(code:string) => languageCodeToName(code),
  },
  {
    key: 'version',
    reverse: true,
  }
]));
Gent
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Joshua Hansen
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7

Simpler one:

var someArray = [...];

function generateSortFn(props) {
    return function (a, b) {
        for (var i = 0; i < props.length; i++) {
            var prop = props[i];
            var name = prop.name;
            var reverse = prop.reverse;
            if (a[name] < b[name])
                return reverse ? 1 : -1;
            if (a[name] > b[name])
                return reverse ? -1 : 1;
        }
        return 0;
    };
};

someArray.sort(generateSortFn([{name: 'prop1', reverse: true}, {name: 'prop2'}]));
ravshansbox
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7

Here's another one that's perhaps closer to your idea for the syntax

function sortObjects(objArray, properties /*, primers*/) {
    var primers = arguments[2] || {}; // primers are optional

    properties = properties.map(function(prop) {
        if( !(prop instanceof Array) ) {
            prop = [prop, 'asc']
        }
        if( prop[1].toLowerCase() == 'desc' ) {
            prop[1] = -1;
        } else {
            prop[1] = 1;
        }
        return prop;
    });

    function valueCmp(x, y) {
        return x > y ? 1 : x < y ? -1 : 0; 
    }

    function arrayCmp(a, b) {
        var arr1 = [], arr2 = [];
        properties.forEach(function(prop) {
            var aValue = a[prop[0]],
                bValue = b[prop[0]];
            if( typeof primers[prop[0]] != 'undefined' ) {
                aValue = primers[prop[0]](aValue);
                bValue = primers[prop[0]](bValue);
            }
            arr1.push( prop[1] * valueCmp(aValue, bValue) );
            arr2.push( prop[1] * valueCmp(bValue, aValue) );
        });
        return arr1 < arr2 ? -1 : 1;
    }

    objArray.sort(function(a, b) {
        return arrayCmp(a, b);
    });
}

// just for fun use this to reverse the city name when sorting
function demoPrimer(str) {
    return str.split('').reverse().join('');
}

// Example
sortObjects(homes, ['city', ['price', 'desc']], {city: demoPrimer});

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/Nq4dk/2/


Edit: Just for fun, here's a variation that just takes an sql-like string, so you can do sortObjects(homes, "city, price desc")

function sortObjects(objArray, properties /*, primers*/) {
    var primers = arguments[2] || {};

    properties = properties.split(/\s*,\s*/).map(function(prop) {
        prop = prop.match(/^([^\s]+)(\s*desc)?/i);
        if( prop[2] && prop[2].toLowerCase() === 'desc' ) {
            return [prop[1] , -1];
        } else {
            return [prop[1] , 1];
        }
    });

    function valueCmp(x, y) {
        return x > y ? 1 : x < y ? -1 : 0; 
    }

    function arrayCmp(a, b) {
        var arr1 = [], arr2 = [];
        properties.forEach(function(prop) {
            var aValue = a[prop[0]],
                bValue = b[prop[0]];
            if( typeof primers[prop[0]] != 'undefined' ) {
                aValue = primers[prop[0]](aValue);
                bValue = primers[prop[0]](bValue);
            }
            arr1.push( prop[1] * valueCmp(aValue, bValue) );
            arr2.push( prop[1] * valueCmp(bValue, aValue) );
        });
        return arr1 < arr2 ? -1 : 1;
    }

    objArray.sort(function(a, b) {
        return arrayCmp(a, b);
    });
}
Flambino
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  • this solution is clean but not performant because of the array comparison. you can simply do a look through properties keep track of the compared value and it its not zero, return. that's a lot faster. – amankapur91 Sep 22 '14 at 19:00
6

why complicate? just sort it twice! this works perfectly: (just make sure to reverse the importance order from least to most):

jj.sort( (a, b) => (a.id >= b.id) ? 1 : -1 );
jj.sort( (a, b) => (a.status >= b.status) ? 1 : -1 );
noam sondak
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  • This won't work, comparators are chained together to sort on different levels. The example you have, will sort the array based on id and it will then re-sort based on status. Even if ID of an object is less and its status is greater than other object, it'll come in front. To better understand the question, look at other answers and test your code before posting in here. Thanks – Yash Sharma May 10 '22 at 01:07
  • My example works. "status" is the primary sort key, and "id" is the secondary, as I wrote just make sure to reverse the importance order from least to most" – noam sondak May 11 '22 at 09:44
  • I needed to sort by 4 fields, this was visually the easiest solution I found – AutoBaker Dec 14 '22 at 22:54
4

I like SnowBurnt's approach but it needs a tweak to test for equivalence on city NOT a difference.

homes.sort(
   function(a,b){
      if (a.city==b.city){
         return (b.price-a.price);
      } else {
         return (a.city-b.city);
      }
   });
james kenny
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3

Here's my solution based on the Schwartzian transform idiom, hope you find it useful.

function sortByAttribute(array, ...attrs) {
  // generate an array of predicate-objects contains
  // property getter, and descending indicator
  let predicates = attrs.map(pred => {
    let descending = pred.charAt(0) === '-' ? -1 : 1;
    pred = pred.replace(/^-/, '');
    return {
      getter: o => o[pred],
      descend: descending
    };
  });
  // schwartzian transform idiom implementation. aka: "decorate-sort-undecorate"
  return array.map(item => {
    return {
      src: item,
      compareValues: predicates.map(predicate => predicate.getter(item))
    };
  })
  .sort((o1, o2) => {
    let i = -1, result = 0;
    while (++i < predicates.length) {
      if (o1.compareValues[i] < o2.compareValues[i]) result = -1;
      if (o1.compareValues[i] > o2.compareValues[i]) result = 1;
      if (result *= predicates[i].descend) break;
    }
    return result;
  })
  .map(item => item.src);
}

Here's an example how to use it:

let games = [
  { name: 'Pako',              rating: 4.21 },
  { name: 'Hill Climb Racing', rating: 3.88 },
  { name: 'Angry Birds Space', rating: 3.88 },
  { name: 'Badland',           rating: 4.33 }
];

// sort by one attribute
console.log(sortByAttribute(games, 'name'));
// sort by mupltiple attributes
console.log(sortByAttribute(games, '-rating', 'name'));
a8m
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    I tried a few things on this (and other pages). This solution by a8m was only one to work for my situation: https://gist.github.com/cemerson/f1f1434286c1262b403f3d85c96688e0 – Christopher Sep 01 '17 at 09:43
3

Just another option. Consider to use the following utility function:

/** Performs comparing of two items by specified properties
 * @param  {Array} props for sorting ['name'], ['value', 'city'], ['-date']
 * to set descending order on object property just add '-' at the begining of property
 */
export const compareBy = (...props) => (a, b) => {
  for (let i = 0; i < props.length; i++) {
    const ascValue = props[i].startsWith('-') ? -1 : 1;
    const prop = props[i].startsWith('-') ? props[i].substr(1) : props[i];
    if (a[prop] !== b[prop]) {
      return a[prop] > b[prop] ? ascValue : -ascValue;
    }
  }
  return 0;
};

Example of usage (in your case):

homes.sort(compareBy('city', '-price'));

It should be noted that this function can be even more generalized in order to be able to use nested properties like 'address.city' or 'style.size.width' etc.

Dmitry Anch
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  • Nice solution for perfect data but when a key is missing, it will fails the sorting in both the order. Any idea? – Hemang Mar 04 '21 at 13:10
  • To fix that problem here is my solution - https://js.do/hemangshah-in/569879 – Hemang Mar 04 '21 at 13:46
3

To make things simple, use these helper functions.

You can sort by as many fields as you need. For each sort field, specify the property name, and then, optionally, specify -1 as the sort direction to sort descending instead of ascending.

const data = [
  {"h_id":"3","city":"Dallas","state":"TX","zip":"75201","price":"162500"},
  {"h_id":"4","city":"Bevery Hills","state":"CA","zip":"90210","price":"319250"},
  {"h_id":"6","city":"Dallas","state":"TX","zip":"75000","price":"556699"},
  {"h_id":"5","city":"New York","state":"NY","zip":"00010","price":"962500"},
  {"h_id":"7","city":"New York","state":"NY","zip":"00010","price":"800500"}
]

const sortLexically   = (p,d=1)=>(a,b)=>d * a[p].localeCompare(b[p])
const sortNumerically = (p,d=1)=>(a,b)=>d * (a[p]-b[p])
const sortBy          = sorts=>(a,b)=>sorts.reduce((r,s)=>r||s(a,b),0)

// sort first by city, then by price descending
data.sort(sortBy([sortLexically('city'), sortNumerically('price', -1)]))

console.log(data)
Andrew Parks
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  • Very clean, nicest solution here imo. I'll add initialising an `Intl.Collator` for locale comparison is a lot more efficient than `localeCompare` – Dominic Jul 29 '23 at 21:24
2

Another way

var homes = [
    {"h_id":"3",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75201",
     "price":"162500"},
    {"h_id":"4",
     "city":"Bevery Hills",
     "state":"CA",
     "zip":"90210",
     "price":"319250"},
    {"h_id":"6",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75000",
     "price":"556699"},
    {"h_id":"5",
     "city":"New York",
     "state":"NY",
     "zip":"00010",
     "price":"962500"}
    ];
function sortBy(ar) {
  return ar.sort((a, b) => a.city === b.city ?
      b.price.toString().localeCompare(a.price) :
      a.city.toString().localeCompare(b.city));
}
console.log(sortBy(homes));
Mihai
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2

simply follow the list of your sorting criteria

this code will always remain readable and understandable even if you have 36 sorting criteria to encase

The solution proposed here by Nina is certainly very elegant, but it implies knowing that a value of zero corresponds to a value of false in Boolean logic, and that Boolean tests can return something other than true / false in JavaScript (here are numeric values) which will always be confusing for a beginner.

Also think about who will need to maintain your code. Maybe it would be you: imagine yourself spending your days raking for days the code of another and having a pernicious bug ... and you are exhausted from reading these thousands of lines full of tips

const homes = 
  [ { h_id: '3', city: 'Dallas',       state: 'TX', zip: '75201', price: '162500' } 
  , { h_id: '4', city: 'Bevery Hills', state: 'CA', zip: '90210', price: '319250' } 
  , { h_id: '6', city: 'Dallas',       state: 'TX', zip: '75000', price: '556699' } 
  , { h_id: '5', city: 'New York',     state: 'NY', zip: '00010', price: '962500' } 
  ]
  
const fSort = (a,b) =>
  {
  let Dx = a.city.localeCompare(b.city)              // 1st criteria
  if (Dx===0) Dx = Number(b.price) - Number(a.price) // 2nd

  // if (Dx===0) Dx = ... // 3rd
  // if (Dx===0) Dx = ... // 4th....
  return Dx
  }

console.log( homes.sort(fSort))
Mister Jojo
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2

Adding a couple helper functions lets you solved this kind of problem generically and simply. sortByKey takes an array and a function which should return a list of items with which to compare each array entry.

This takes advantage of the fact that javascript does smart comparison of arrays of simple values, with [2] < [2, 0] < [2, 1] < [10, 0].

// Two helpers:
function cmp(a, b) {
    if (a > b) {
        return 1
    } else if (a < b) {
        return -1
    } else {
        return 0
    }
}

function sortByKey(arr, key) {
    arr.sort((a, b) => cmp(key(a), key(b)))
}

// A demonstration:
let arr = [{a:1, b:2}, {b:3, a:0}, {a:1, b:1}, {a:2, b:2}, {a:2, b:1}, {a:1, b:10}]
sortByKey(arr, item => [item.a, item.b])

console.log(JSON.stringify(arr))
// '[{"b":3,"a":0},{"a":1,"b":1},{"a":1,"b":10},{"a":1,"b":2},{"a":2,"b":1},{"a":2,"b":2}]'

sortByKey(arr, item => [item.b, item.a])
console.log(JSON.stringify(arr))
// '[{"a":1,"b":1},{"a":2,"b":1},{"a":1,"b":10},{"a":1,"b":2},{"a":2,"b":2},{"b":3,"a":0}]'

I've lovingly stolen this idea from Python's list.sort function.

bukzor
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  • This only works with single digit numbers. `[1, 0] < [10, 0] < [2, 0]` – user7431543 Jan 09 '22 at 23:25
  • @Coop That's simply untrue. I've updated the answer to demonstrate. – bukzor Aug 17 '22 at 17:39
  • I may be misunderstanding but your example appears to be sorting incorrectly. In the first one you see b 10 is before b 2. I can test this in javascript by doing `console.log('Check', [2, 0] > [10, 0])` which returns true when it should be false for this method to work correctly. – user7431543 Aug 18 '22 at 19:11
  • this *"smart comparison of arrays of simple values"* is performing a simple string-comparison on the stringified arrays. So `cmp([1,2,3], [2,3,4])` compares `cmp("1,2,3", "2,3,4")`. – Thomas Oct 07 '22 at 07:50
2

my humble proposal:

function cmp(a, b) {
  if (a > b) return 1;
  if (a < b) return -1;
  return 0;
}

function objCmp(a, b, fields) {
  for (let field of fields) {
    let ret = 
      cmp(a[field], b[field]);
    if (ret != 0) {
      return ret;
    }
  }
  return 0;
}

with these two functions, you may sort quite elegantly an array of objects the following way:

let sortedArray = homes.sort(
  (a, b) => objCmp(
    a, b, ['state', 'city'])
);
alex
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1

Here is a generic version of @Snowburnt's solution:

var sortarray = [{field:'city', direction:'asc'}, {field:'price', direction:'desc'}];
array.sort(function(a,b){
    for(var i=0; i<sortarray.length; i++){
        retval = a[sortarray[i].field] < b[sortarray[i].field] ? -1 : a[sortarray[i].field] > b[sortarray[i].field] ? 1 : 0;
        if (sortarray[i].direction == "desc") {
            retval = retval * -1;
        }
        if (retval !== 0) {
            return retval;
        }
    }
}


})

This is based on a sort routine I'm using. I didn't test this specific code so it may have errors but you get the idea. The idea is to sort based on the first field that indicates a difference and then stop and go to the next record. So, if you're sorting by three fields and the first field in the compare is enough to determine the sort order of the two records being sorted then return that sort result and go to the next record.

I tested it (actually with a little more complex sort logic) on 5000 records and it did it in the blink of an eye. If you're actually loading more than 1000 records to the client you should probably be using sever-side sorting and filtering.

This code isn't handling case-sensitivity but I leave it to the reader to handle this trivial modification.

HisDivineShadow
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1
function sort(data, orderBy) {
        orderBy = Array.isArray(orderBy) ? orderBy : [orderBy];
        return data.sort((a, b) => {
            for (let i = 0, size = orderBy.length; i < size; i++) {
                const key = Object.keys(orderBy[i])[0],
                    o = orderBy[i][key],
                    valueA = a[key],
                    valueB = b[key];
                if (!(valueA || valueB)) {
                    console.error("the objects from the data passed does not have the key '" + key + "' passed on sort!");
                    return [];
                }
                if (+valueA === +valueA) {
                    return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? valueB - valueA : valueA - valueB;
                } else {
                    if (valueA.localeCompare(valueB) > 0) {
                        return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? -1 : 1;
                    } else if (valueA.localeCompare(valueB) < 0) {
                        return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? 1 : -1;
                    }
                }
            }
        });
    }

Using :

sort(homes, [{city : 'asc'}, {price: 'desc'}])

var homes = [
    {"h_id":"3",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75201",
     "price":"162500"},
    {"h_id":"4",
     "city":"Bevery Hills",
     "state":"CA",
     "zip":"90210",
     "price":"319250"},
    {"h_id":"6",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75000",
     "price":"556699"},
    {"h_id":"5",
     "city":"New York",
     "state":"NY",
     "zip":"00010",
     "price":"962500"}
    ];
function sort(data, orderBy) {
            orderBy = Array.isArray(orderBy) ? orderBy : [orderBy];
            return data.sort((a, b) => {
                for (let i = 0, size = orderBy.length; i < size; i++) {
                    const key = Object.keys(orderBy[i])[0],
                        o = orderBy[i][key],
                        valueA = a[key],
                        valueB = b[key];
                    if (!(valueA || valueB)) {
                        console.error("the objects from the data passed does not have the key '" + key + "' passed on sort!");
                        return [];
                    }
                    if (+valueA === +valueA) {
                        return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? valueB - valueA : valueA - valueB;
                    } else {
                        if (valueA.localeCompare(valueB) > 0) {
                            return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? -1 : 1;
                        } else if (valueA.localeCompare(valueB) < 0) {
                            return o.toLowerCase() === 'desc' ? 1 : -1;
                        }
                    }
                }
            });
        }
console.log(sort(homes, [{city : 'asc'}, {price: 'desc'}]));
Elias Pinheiro
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1
// custom sorting by city
const sortArray = ['Dallas', 'New York', 'Beverly Hills'];

const sortData = (sortBy) =>
  data
    .sort((a, b) => {
      const aIndex = sortBy.indexOf(a.city);
      const bIndex = sortBy.indexOf(b.city);

      if (aIndex < bIndex) {
        return -1;
      }

      if (aIndex === bIndex) {
        // price descending
        return b.price- a.price;
      }

      return 1;
    });

sortData(sortArray);
Eman4real
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1

You can use lodash orderBy function lodash

It takes two params array of fields, and array of directions ('asc','desc')

  var homes = [
    {"h_id":"3",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75201",
     "price":"162500"},
    {"h_id":"4",
     "city":"Bevery Hills",
     "state":"CA",
     "zip":"90210",
     "price":"319250"},
    {"h_id":"6",
     "city":"Dallas",
     "state":"TX",
     "zip":"75000",
     "price":"556699"},
    {"h_id":"5",
     "city":"New York",
     "state":"NY",
     "zip":"00010",
     "price":"962500"}
    ];

var sorted =. data._.orderBy(data, ['city', 'price'], ['asc','desc'])
Ambulance lada
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1

A very intuitive functional solution can be crafted by adding 3 relatively simple helpers. Before we dive in, let's start with the usage:

function usage(homes, { asc, desc, fallback }) {
  homes.sort(fallback(
    asc(home => home.city),
    desc(home => parseInt(home.price, 10)),
  ));
  console.log(homes);
}

var homes = [{
  h_id:  "3",
  city:  "Dallas",
  state: "TX",
  zip:   "75201",
  price: "162500",
}, {
  h_id:  "4",
  city:  "Bevery Hills",
  state: "CA",
  zip:   "90210",
  price: "319250",
}, {
  h_id:  "6",
  city:  "Dallas",
  state: "TX",
  zip:   "75000",
  price: "556699",
}, {
  h_id:  "5",
  city:  "New York",
  state: "NY",
  zip:   "00010",
  price: "962500",
}];

const SortHelpers = (function () {
  const asc  = (fn) => (a, b) => (a = fn(a), b = fn(b), -(a < b) || +(a > b));
  const desc = (fn) => (a, b) => asc(fn)(b, a);
  const fallback = (...fns) => (a, b) => fns.reduce((diff, fn) => diff || fn(a, b), 0);
  return { asc, desc, fallback };
})();

usage(homes, SortHelpers);

If you scrolled down the snippet you probably already saw the helpers:

const asc  = (fn) => (a, b) => (a = fn(a), b = fn(b), -(a < b) || +(a > b));
const desc = (fn) => (a, b) => asc(fn)(b, a);
const fallback = (...fns) => (a, b) => fns.reduce((diff, fn) => diff || fn(a, b), 0);

Let me quickly explain what each of these functions does.

  • asc creates a comparator function. The provided function fn is called for both the comparator arguments a and b. The results of the two function calls are then compared. -1 is returned if resultA < resultB, 1 is returned if resultA > resultB, or 0 otherwise. These return values correspond with an ascending order direction.

    It could also be written like this:

    function asc(fn) {
      return function (a, b) {
        // apply `fn` to both `a` and `b`
        a = fn(a);
        b = fn(b);
    
        if (a < b) return -1;
        if (a > b) return  1;
        return 0;
        // or `return -(a < b) || +(a > b)` for short
      };
    }
    
  • desc is super simple, since it just calls asc but swaps the a and b arguments, resulting in descending order instead of ascending.

  • fallback (there might be a better name for this) allows us to use multiple comparator functions with a single sort.

    Both asc and desc can be passed to sort by themself.

    homes.sort(asc(home => home.city))
    

    There is however an issue if you want to combine multiple comparator functions. sort only accepts a single comparator function. fallback combines multiple comparator functions into a single comparator.

    The first comparator is called with arguments a and b, if the comparator returns the value 0 (meaning that the values are equal) then we fall back to the next comparator. This continues until a non-0 value is found, or until all comparators are called, in which case the return value is 0.

You can provide your custom comparator functions to fallback() as well. Say you want to use localeCompare() instead of comparing strings with < and >. In such a case you can replace asc(home => home.city) with (a, b) => a.city.localeCompare(b.city).

homes.sort(fallback(
  (a, b) => a.city.localeCompare(b.city),
  desc(home => parseInt(home.price, 10)),
));

One thing to note is that values that can be undefined will always return false when comparing with < and >. So if a value can be missing you might want to sort by its presence first.

homes.sort(fallback(
  // homes with optionalProperty first, true (1) > false (0) so we use desc
  desc(home => home.optionalProperty != null), // checks for both null and undefined
  asc(home => home.optionalProperty),
  // ...
))

Since comparing strings with localeCompare() is such a common thing to do, you could include this as part of asc().

function hasMethod(item, methodName) {
  return item != null && typeof item[methodName] === "function";
}

function asc(fn) {
  return function (a, b) {
    a = fn(a);
    b = fn(b);

    const areLocaleComparable =
      hasMethod(a, "localeCompare") && hasMethod(b, "localeCompare");

    if (areLocaleComparable) return a.localeCompare(b);

    return -(a < b) || +(a > b);
  };
}
3limin4t0r
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1

Here, you can try the smaller and convenient way to sort by multiple fields!

var homes = [
    { "h_id": "3", "city": "Dallas", "state": "TX", "zip": "75201", "price": "162500" },
    { "h_id": "4", "city": "Bevery Hills", "state": "CA", "zip": "90210", "price": "319250" },
    { "h_id": "6", "city": "Dallas", "state": "TX", "zip": "75000", "price": "556699" },
    { "h_id": "5", "city": "New York", "state": "NY", "zip": "00010", "price": "962500" }
];

homes.sort((a, b)=> {
  if (a.city === b.city){
    return a.price < b.price ? -1 : 1
  } else {
    return a.city < b.city ? -1 : 1
  }
})

console.log(homes);
Ajay Gupta
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0

Here 'AffiliateDueDate' and 'Title' are columns, both are sorted in ascending order.

array.sort(function(a, b) {

               if (a.AffiliateDueDate > b.AffiliateDueDate ) return 1;
               else if (a.AffiliateDueDate < b.AffiliateDueDate ) return -1;
               else if (a.Title > b.Title ) return 1;
               else if (a.Title < b.Title ) return -1;
               else return 0;
             })
Amay Kulkarni
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0
function sortMultiFields(prop){
    return function(a,b){
        for(i=0;i<prop.length;i++)
        {
            var reg = /^\d+$/;
            var x=1;
            var field1=prop[i];
            if(prop[i].indexOf("-")==0)
            {
                field1=prop[i].substr(1,prop[i].length);
                x=-x;
            }

            if(reg.test(a[field1]))
            {
                a[field1]=parseFloat(a[field1]);
                b[field1]=parseFloat(b[field1]);
            }
            if( a[field1] > b[field1])
                return x;
            else if(a[field1] < b[field1])
                return -x;
        }
    }
}

How to use (put -(minus) sign before field if you want to sort in descending order particular field)

homes.sort(sortMultiFields(["city","-price"]));

Using above function you can sort any json array with multiple fields. No need to change function body at all

Nikhil sHETH
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0

Adaptation of @chriskelly 's answer.


Most answers overlook that price will not sort properly if the value is in the ten thousands and lower or over a million. The resaon being JS sorts alphabetically. It was answered pretty well here, Why can't JavaScript sort "5, 10, 1" and here How to sort an array of integers correctly.

Ultimately we have to do some evaluation if the field or node we're sorting by is an number. I am not saying that using parseInt() in this case is the correct answer, the sorted results are more important.

var homes = [{
  "h_id": "2",
  "city": "Dallas",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "75201",
  "price": "62500"
}, {
  "h_id": "1",
  "city": "Dallas",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "75201",
  "price": "62510"
}, {
  "h_id": "3",
  "city": "Dallas",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "75201",
  "price": "162500"
}, {
  "h_id": "4",
  "city": "Bevery Hills",
  "state": "CA",
  "zip": "90210",
  "price": "319250"
}, {
  "h_id": "6",
  "city": "Dallas",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "75000",
  "price": "556699"
}, {
  "h_id": "5",
  "city": "New York",
  "state": "NY",
  "zip": "00010",
  "price": "962500"
}];

homes.sort(fieldSorter(['price']));
// homes.sort(fieldSorter(['zip', '-state', 'price'])); // alternative

function fieldSorter(fields) {
  return function(a, b) {
    return fields
      .map(function(o) {
        var dir = 1;
        if (o[0] === '-') {
          dir = -1;
          o = o.substring(1);
        }
        if (!parseInt(a[o]) && !parseInt(b[o])) {
          if (a[o] > b[o]) return dir;
          if (a[o] < b[o]) return -(dir);
          return 0;
        } else {
          return dir > 0 ? a[o] - b[o] : b[o] - a[o];
        }
      })
      .reduce(function firstNonZeroValue(p, n) {
        return p ? p : n;
      }, 0);
  };
}
document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = '<pre>' + JSON.stringify(homes, null, '\t') + '</pre>';
<div id="output">

</div>

A fiddle to test with

Mark Carpenter Jr
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  • The problem is with the data you are trying to sort. `price` in the example is in string format. If you want it to work correctly with my example use map to convert the field you want to number format first. i.e. `const correctedHomes = homes.map(h => ({...h, price: +h.price}))` – chriskelly Nov 29 '17 at 20:44
0

Wow, there are some complex solutions here. So complex I decided to come up with something simpler but also quite powerful. Here it is;

function sortByPriority(data, priorities) {
  if (priorities.length == 0) {
    return data;
  }

  const nextPriority = priorities[0];
  const remainingPriorities = priorities.slice(1);

  const matched = data.filter(item => item.hasOwnProperty(nextPriority));
  const remainingData = data.filter(item => !item.hasOwnProperty(nextPriority));

  return sortByPriority(matched, remainingPriorities)
    .sort((a, b) => (a[nextPriority] > b[nextPriority]) ? 1 : -1)
    .concat(sortByPriority(remainingData, remainingPriorities));
}

And here is an example of how you use it.

const data = [
  { id: 1,                         mediumPriority: 'bbb', lowestPriority: 'ggg' },
  { id: 2, highestPriority: 'bbb', mediumPriority: 'ccc', lowestPriority: 'ggg' },
  { id: 3,                         mediumPriority: 'aaa', lowestPriority: 'ggg' },
];

const priorities = [
  'highestPriority',
  'mediumPriority',
  'lowestPriority'
];


const sorted = sortByPriority(data, priorities);

This will first sort by the precedence of the attributes, then by the value of the attributes.

Steztric
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0

I think this may be the easiest way to do it.

https://coderwall.com/p/ebqhca/javascript-sort-by-two-fields

It's really simple and I tried it with 3 different key value pairs and it worked great.

Here is a simple example, look at the link for more details

testSort(data) {
    return data.sort(
        a['nameOne'] > b['nameOne'] ? 1
        : b['nameOne'] > a['nameOne'] ? -1 : 0 ||
        a['date'] > b['date'] ||
        a['number'] - b['number']
    );
}
JDinar
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0

Here is mine for your reference, with example:

function msort(arr, ...compFns) {
  let fn = compFns[0];
  arr = [].concat(arr);
  let arr1 = [];
  while (arr.length > 0) {
    let arr2 = arr.splice(0, 1);
    for (let i = arr.length; i > 0;) {
      if (fn(arr2[0], arr[--i]) === 0) {
        arr2 = arr2.concat(arr.splice(i, 1));
      }
    }
    arr1.push(arr2);
  }

  arr1.sort(function (a, b) {
    return fn(a[0], b[0]);
  });

  compFns = compFns.slice(1);
  let res = [];
  arr1.map(a1 => {
    if (compFns.length > 0) a1 = msort(a1, ...compFns);
    a1.map(a2 => res.push(a2));
  });
  return res;
}

let tstArr = [{ id: 1, sex: 'o' }, { id: 2, sex: 'm' }, { id: 3, sex: 'm' }, { id: 4, sex: 'f' }, { id: 5, sex: 'm' }, { id: 6, sex: 'o' }, { id: 7, sex: 'f' }];

function tstFn1(a, b) {
  if (a.sex > b.sex) return 1;
  else if (a.sex < b.sex) return -1;
  return 0;
}

function tstFn2(a, b) {
  if (a.id > b.id) return -1;
  else if (a.id < b.id) return 1;
  return 0;
}

console.log(JSON.stringify(msort(tstArr, tstFn1, tstFn2)));
//output:
//[{"id":7,"sex":"f"},{"id":4,"sex":"f"},{"id":5,"sex":"m"},{"id":3,"sex":"m"},{"id":2,"sex":"m"},{"id":6,"sex":"o"},{"id":1,"sex":"o"}]
zipper
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0

I was looking for something similar and ended up with this:

First we have one or more sorting functions, always returning either 0, 1 or -1:

const sortByTitle = (a, b): number => 
  a.title === b.title ? 0 : a.title > b.title ? 1 : -1;

You can create more functions for each other property you want to sort on.

Then I have a function that combines these sorting functions into one:

const createSorter = (...sorters) => (a, b) =>
  sorters.reduce(
    (d, fn) => (d === 0 ? fn(a, b) : d),
    0
  );

This can be used to combine the above sorting functions in a readable way:

const sorter = createSorter(sortByTitle, sortByYear)

items.sort(sorter)

When a sorting function returns 0 the next sorting function will be called for further sorting.

Soesah
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0

This is a recursive algorithm to sort by multiple fields while having the chance to format values before comparison.

var data = [
{
    "id": 1,
    "ship": null,
    "product": "Orange",
    "quantity": 7,
    "price": 92.08,
    "discount": 0
},
{
    "id": 2,
    "ship": "2017-06-14T23:00:00.000Z".toDate(),
    "product": "Apple",
    "quantity": 22,
    "price": 184.16,
    "discount": 0
},
...
]
var sorts = ["product", "quantity", "ship"]

// comp_val formats values and protects against comparing nulls/undefines
// type() just returns the variable constructor
// String.lower just converts the string to lowercase.
// String.toDate custom fn to convert strings to Date
function comp_val(value){
    if (value==null || value==undefined) return null
    var cls = type(value)
    switch (cls){
        case String:
            return value.lower()
    }
    return value
}

function compare(a, b, i){
    i = i || 0
    var prop = sorts[i]
    var va = comp_val(a[prop])
    var vb = comp_val(b[prop])

    // handle what to do when both or any values are null
    if (va == null || vb == null) return true

    if ((i < sorts.length-1) && (va == vb)) {
        return compare(a, b, i+1)
    } 
    return va > vb
}

var d = data.sort(compare);
console.log(d);

If a and b are equal it will just try the next field until none is available.

Mackraken
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0

// Array of objects representing the data
const data = [
  { name: 'John', surname: 'Doe', birthdate: new Date(1980, 5, 15) },
  { name: 'Jane', surname: 'Smith', birthdate: new Date(1990, 2, 28) },
  { name: 'Alex', surname: 'Johnson', birthdate: new Date(1985, 8, 10) },
  // Additional objects...
];

// Custom comparator function for multiple field sorting
function multiFieldSort(a, b) {
  // Sorting fields and orders
  const fields = [
    { name: 'name', order: 'asc' },
    { name: 'surname', order: 'desc' },
    { name: 'birthdate', order: 'desc' },
  ];

  // Iterate over fields and perform comparisons
  for (const field of fields) {
    const aValue = a[field.name];
    const bValue = b[field.name];

    let comparison = 0;

    if (typeof aValue === 'string' && typeof bValue === 'string') {
      comparison = aValue.localeCompare(bValue);
    } else if (typeof aValue === 'number' && typeof bValue === 'number') {
      comparison = aValue - bValue;
    } else if (aValue instanceof Date && bValue instanceof Date) {
      comparison = aValue.getTime() - bValue.getTime();
    }

    if (comparison !== 0) {
      return field.order === 'asc' ? comparison : -comparison;
    }
  }

  // Default case: preserve the original order
  return 0;
}

// Sort the data array using the multiFieldSort function
data.sort(multiFieldSort);

// Output the sorted data
console.log(data);
Murat Can OĞUZHAN
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0

Fastest and easiest way is to use OR-chaining as many of people already suggested here. For the specified example data it looks like this:

homes.sort((a, b) =>
    a.city.localeCompare(b.city)
    || (Number(b.price) - Number(a.price))
);

But if you want something configurable (and in TypeScript), you can try the following code:

Code (TypeScript)

export type Comparer<T> = (a: T, b: T) => number;

export type CompareCriterion<TItem, TValue> = {
    selector: (item: TItem) => TValue,
    descending?: boolean,
    comparer?: Comparer<TValue>,
};

export const defaultComparer = <T>(a: T, b: T): number => {
    return a === b ? 0 : a > b ? 1 : -1;
};

export const defaultNumberComparer = (a: number, b: number): number => {
    return a - b;
};

export const StringComparer = (() => {
    const currentLocale = new Intl.Collator(navigator.language, { usage: 'sort', sensitivity: 'variant', caseFirst: 'upper' });
    const currentLocaleIgnoreCase = new Intl.Collator(navigator.language, { usage: 'sort', sensitivity: 'accent', caseFirst: 'upper' });
    const invariantLocale = new Intl.Collator('en', { usage: 'sort', sensitivity: 'variant', caseFirst: 'upper' });
    const invariantLocaleIgnoreCase = new Intl.Collator('en', { usage: 'sort', sensitivity: 'accent', caseFirst: 'upper' });
    return {
        // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/unbound-method
        currentLocale: currentLocale.compare,

        // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/unbound-method
        currentLocaleIgnoreCase: currentLocaleIgnoreCase.compare,

        // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/unbound-method
        invariantLocale: invariantLocale.compare,

        // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/unbound-method
        invariantLocaleIgnoreCase: invariantLocaleIgnoreCase.compare,
    };
})();

export const defaultStringComparer = (a: string, b: string): number => {
    return a.localeCompare(b);
};

export const defaultDateComparer = (a: Date, b: Date): number => {
    return a.getTime() - b.getTime();
};

export class ComparerBuilder<TItem> {
    #criteria: ((next?: Comparer<TItem>) => Comparer<TItem>)[] = [];

    add<TValue>(criterion: CompareCriterion<TItem, TValue>): ComparerBuilder<TItem> {
        this.#criteria.push(next => ComparerBuilder.#createComparer(criterion, next));
        return this;
    }

    static #createComparer<TItem, TValue>(
        criterion: CompareCriterion<TItem, TValue>,
        next?: Comparer<TItem>,
    ): Comparer<TItem> {
        const comparer = criterion.comparer ?? defaultComparer;
        return (a: TItem, b: TItem) => {
            const av = criterion.selector(a);
            const bv = criterion.selector(b);
            const comparison = comparer(av, bv);
            if (comparison === 0)
                return next?.(a, b) ?? 0;
            return criterion.descending ? -comparison : comparison;
        };
    }

    build(bottomComparer?: Comparer<TItem>): Comparer<TItem> {
        let comparer = bottomComparer;
        for (let i = this.#criteria.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            comparer = this.#criteria[i](comparer);
        return comparer ?? defaultComparer;
    }
}

Usage example

// Declare item type.
type Item = { key: number, code: string, name: string, price: number };

// Build comparer from provided criteria.
const comparer = new ComparerBuilder<Item>()
    .add({ selector: v => v.price })
    .add({ selector: v => v.code, descending: true, comparer: StringComparer.currentLocaleIgnoreCase })
    .add({ selector: v => v.name, comparer: new Intl.Collator('ru').compare })
    .add({ selector: v => v.key, comparer: defaultNumberComparer })
    .build();

// Use built comparer for multiple calls.
const items1: Item[] = [{ key: 1, code: 'FOO', name: 'bar', price: 100.98 }, { key: 2, code: 'FOa', name: 'baz', price: 100.98 }];
// Note: we are using spread operator to prevent original array mutation (sort method works so).
const sortedItems1 = [...items1].sort(comparer);

const items2: Item[] = [{ key: 1, code: 'BAR', name: 'foo', price: 100.98 }];
// Note: we are using spread operator to prevent original array mutation (sort method works so).
const sortedItems2 = [...items2].sort(comparer);
Sat
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-1

Sorting on two date fields and a numeric field example:

var generic_date =  new Date(2070, 1, 1);
checkDate = function(date) {
  return Date.parse(date) ? new Date(date): generic_date;
}

function sortData() {  
  data.sort(function(a,b){
    var deltaEnd = checkDate(b.end) - checkDate(a.end);
    if(deltaEnd) return deltaEnd;

    var deltaRank = a.rank - b.rank;
    if (deltaRank) return deltaRank;

    var deltaStart = checkDate(b.start) - checkDate(a.start);
    if(deltaStart) return deltaStart;

    return 0;
  });
}

http://jsfiddle.net/hcWgf/57/

Igor Vaschuk
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-1

How about this simple solution:

const sortCompareByCityPrice = (a, b) => {
    let comparison = 0
    // sort by first criteria
    if (a.city > b.city) {
        comparison = 1
    }
    else if (a.city < b.city) {
        comparison = -1
    }
    // If still 0 then sort by second criteria descending
    if (comparison === 0) {
        if (parseInt(a.price) > parseInt(b.price)) {
            comparison = -1
        }
        else if (parseInt(a.price) < parseInt(b.price)) {
            comparison = 1
        }
    }
    return comparison 
}

Based on this question javascript sort array by multiple (number) fields

ramvanet
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-2
homes.sort(function(a,b) { return a.city - b.city } );
homes.sort(function(a,b){
    if (a.city==b.city){
        return parseFloat(b.price) - parseFloat(a.price);
    } else {
        return 0;
    }
});
  • Why not just put everything into a single function? If city is not equal, return the diff of them, else, diff the price. – Mad Physicist Aug 29 '14 at 04:35
-6

Simplest Way to sort array of object by multiple fields:

 let homes = [ {"h_id":"3",
   "city":"Dallas",
   "state":"TX",
   "zip":"75201",
   "price":"162500"},
  {"h_id":"4",
   "city":"Bevery Hills",
   "state":"CA",
   "zip":"90210",
   "price":"319250"},
  {"h_id":"6",
   "city":"Dallas",
   "state":"TX",
   "zip":"75000",
   "price":"556699"},
  {"h_id":"5",
   "city":"New York",
   "state":"NY",
   "zip":"00010",
   "price":"962500"}
  ];

homes.sort((a, b) => (a.city > b.city) ? 1 : -1);

Output: "Bevery Hills" "Dallas" "Dallas" "Dallas" "New York"

Siraj Ali
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    The OP is asking about sorting by multiple properties, you're using only one field here. Read the question carefully before you answer. – kabirbaidhya Sep 27 '20 at 02:36