javascript sort with unicode

Question

There are a lot of examples for sorting some JSON array by some property (i.e. 'title') We are using compare function like this one:

function sortComparer(a, b) {
        if (a.title == b.title)
            return 0;
        return a1 > b1 ? 1 : -1;
    }

Problem is that Serbian Latin alphabet order looks like "A, B, C, Č, Ć, D,..." When using sortComparer above I am getting D sorted before "Č" or "Ć". Any idea how to sort respecting current culture language?

One way would be to replace the other characters with their ASCII equivalent. — Felix Kling, Aug 02 '11 at 08:25
Not sure what you think. Only way I am getting on my mind is to define array of letters like: var letters = {'a','b','c', 'č','ć', ...} and in sortComparer function compare indexes. Disadvantage of this approach is that we have to write such array for each culture that is not english. — Andrej Kaurin, Aug 02 '11 at 08:43
Javascript does not support the Unicode Collation Algorithm, so you’re basically hosed. You cannot use a code point sort and get anything reasonable. To get an alphabetical sort, you need the UCA. — tchrist, Aug 16 '11 at 01:34
I think your expected order is wrong. There is an example https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/Collator#using_options — , Aug 04 '21 at 11:06

score 64 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 02 '11 at 08:49

64

If the locale in your system is set correctly then you can use localeCompare method instead of greater-than operator to compare the strings - this method is locale aware.

function sortComparer(a,b){
    return a.title.localeCompare(b.title)
};

answered Aug 02 '11 at 08:49

Andris

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4

This will work only if locale is set. Any method to pass culture together with compared value? – Andrej Kaurin Aug 02 '11 at 09:14
2

There's no way to set the locale by script, it is defined by the browser or - depending from the browser - inherited from the OS. – Andris Aug 02 '11 at 09:27
3

I have found full solution here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3630645/how-to-compare-utf-8-strings-in-javascript – Andrej Kaurin Feb 21 '12 at 08:47
4

Be aware that the `localeCompare` function is a lot heavier to run than just comparing strings using `<`, `>`, and `=` operators. Even starting at a result set of 500, there's a significant slow-down using `localeCompare`. As illustrated here, it is slower by a factor of up to 400: https://jsfiddle.net/L4715qey/ – Kafoso Feb 01 '16 at 08:50
how about desc sorting? – Dominik Wilga May 18 '20 at 11:01
Returned value is a number, so to reverse ordering use - sign. – Andris Jun 13 '20 at 03:24

Iman Bahrampour · Answer 2 · 2022-08-14T06:09:08.247

For sorting an array with a custom setting do as following:

Create an array with a custom order of alphabets:

var alphabets = ["A", "B", "C", "Č", "Ć", "D","Dž","Đ","E","F","G","H","I","J","K","L","Lj","M","N","Nj","O","P","R","S", "ÛŒ","T","U","V","Z","Ž"];
Create a list of test array:

var testArrray = ["B2","D6","A1","Ć5","Č4","C3"];

Create a sort function name:

function OrderFunc(){
          testArrray.sort(function (a, b) {
              return CharCompare(a, b, 0);
          });
      }

create the CharCompare function(index: sort "AAAB" before "AAAC"):

 function CharCompare(a, b, index) {
  if (index == a.length || index == b.length)
      return 0;
  //toUpperCase: isn't case sensitive
  var aChar = alphabets.indexOf(a.toUpperCase().charAt(index));
  var bChar = alphabets.indexOf(b.toUpperCase().charAt(index));
  if (aChar != bChar)
      return aChar - bChar
  else
      return CharCompare(a,b,index+1)
 }

Call OrderFunc for sorting the testArray(the result will be : A1,B2,C3,Č4,Ć5,D6).

Test Online

Good Luck

@TheChetan. this is a custom order function and you can manage all the alphabets that you are going to sort. for example, Russian alphabet has 33 chars, Persian has 32 chars and so on. — Iman Bahrampour, Oct 09 '17 at 02:04

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 08 '20 at 06:31

Use The Intl.Collator like you will get perfect sorting result

function letterSort(lang, letters) {
  letters.sort(new Intl.Collator(lang).compare);
  return letters;
}

console.log(letterSort('gu', ['છ','ક','ખ']));
// expected output: Array ["a", "ä", "z"]

console.log(letterSort('sv', ['a','z','ä']));
// expected output: Array ["a", "z", "ä"]

More detail you can check here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Collator

javascript sort with unicode

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