sort JSON by date

Question

I know this must be relatively simple, but I have a dataset of JSON that I would like to sort by date. So far, I've run into problems at every turn. Right now I have the date stored as this.lastUpdated. I have access to jquery if that helps, but I realize the .sort() is native JS. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Assuming that you have an array of javascript objects, just use a custom sort function:

function custom_sort(a, b) {
    return new Date(a.lastUpdated).getTime() - new Date(b.lastUpdated).getTime();
}
var your_array = [
    {lastUpdated: "2010/01/01"},
    {lastUpdated: "2009/01/01"},
    {lastUpdated: "2010/07/01"}
];

your_array.sort(custom_sort);

The Array sort method sorts an array using a callback function that is passed pairs of elements in the array.

• If the return value is negative, the first argument (a in this case), will precede the second argument (b) in the sorted array.
• If the returned value is zero, their position with respect to each other remains unchanged.
• If the returned value is positive, b precedes a in the sorted array.

You can read more on the sort method here.