Maybe you need something like this? Didn't have much time for this and last array parsing might be done in more elegant way ;)
var alerts = [
{ id: 1, date: '2018-10-31T23:18:31.000Z', name: 'Joke', title: 'this is the first 1' },
{ id: 3, date: '2018-10-31T23:44:31.000Z', name: 'Joke1', title: 'this is the 2nd' },
{ id: 2, date: '2018-10-30T23:18:31.000Z', name: 'Mark', title: 'this is the second one' },
{ id: 4, date: '2018-10-30T23:45:31.000Z', name: 'Mark1', title: 'this is the 3rd' },
{ id: 5, date: '2018-10-27T23:18:31.000Z', name: 'Mark2', title: 'this is the 4th' },
];
var processedAlerts = [], finalAlerts;
(function(initAlerts){
//iterate through array to make keys to group by day
for(var i = 0; i < initAlerts.length; i++){
processedAlerts[i] = initAlerts[i];
//substring here can be more sophisticated - this was faster
initAlerts[i].keyDate = initAlerts[i].date.substr(0, 10);
}
//supporting function to convert string to date
//to acheve more detailed sorting that includes time
//just use date object and use hours, minutes and/or seconds to create Date object
function dateFromString(strDate){
var date, tmpDate;
//convert string to array - I assume that date format is always the same
//yyyy-mm-dd and will become Array 0: year, 1: month, 2: day of the month
tmpDate = strDate.split("-");
//moths in js are zero pased so Jan is 0, Feb is 1 and so on
//so we want to substract 1 from human readable month value to get correct date
date = new Date(tmpDate[0], tmpDate[1]-1, tmpDate[2]);
return date;
}
//function used to compare dates and passed to sort function
function comparedates(obj1, obj2){
var date1, date2;
date1 = dateFromString(obj1.keyDate);
date2 = dateFromString(obj2.keyDate);
let comparison = 0;
if(date1>date2){
comparison = 1;
} else if(date1<date2){
comparison = -1;
}
//to achieve reverse just multiply comparison result by -1
return comparison*(-1);
}
function getHeader(date){
//here place logic to generate header
//this involves comparing dates probably from keyDate
return "temp header: " + date.toString()
}
//sort the array by keyDate from newest to oldest
processedAlerts.sort(comparedates);
//final array rebuild
//pass here sorted array
finalAlerts = (function(arrayAlerts){
var aAlerts = [], k = 0;
for(var j = 0; j < arrayAlerts.length; j++){
//check if entry for date exists
//if no than create it
if(!aAlerts[k]){
aAlerts[k] = {
//removed title because I asummed that each alert has unique title and put them in alerts instead
date: arrayAlerts[j].keyDate, //agroupped date
heading: getHeader(arrayAlerts[j].keyDate), //update this function to return personalized heading
//here you can shape the alert object how you need
//I just passed it as it was
alerts: [arrayAlerts[j]] //array with first object inside
};
} else {
//add another alert to day
aAlerts[k].alerts.push(arrayAlerts[j]) //array with first object inside
}
//increasing final array key
//if there is previous entry and keys are the same for current and previous
if(arrayAlerts[j-1] && (arrayAlerts[j].keyDate == arrayAlerts[j-1].keyDate)){
k++;
}
}
return aAlerts;
})(processedAlerts);
})(alerts);
console.log(finalAlerts);