Javascript React sorting complex array

Question

I'm trying to sort a complex array. This array is grabbed with GraphQL from my headless CMS as follows:

query MyQuery {
    teams {
        id
        name
        match {
            teams {
                name
            }
            homePoints
            awayPoints
            date
            trophy
        }
    }
}

Now I'm mapping through all the teams and calculated the total points of a team (depending whether a team is playing home or away) with the following:

<Tbody>
    {!fetching && data.teams.map((team, i) => {
        const points = team.match.map(match => match.teams[0].name === team.name ? match.homePoints : match.awayPoints).reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0)

        return (
            <Tr key={team.id}>
                <Td>{i + 1}</Td>
                <Td>{team.name}</Td>
                <Td>{points}</Td>
            </Tr>
        )
    })}
</Tbody>

The result is displayed well within a table, except the following: it is not sorted. The team with the highest amount of points should be on the top of the table. How to solve this?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/sort? — Andy, Nov 08 '21 at 13:21
Have you tried using the `sort` function? [Sort array of objects by string property value](https://stackoverflow.com/q/1129216/215552) — Heretic Monkey, Nov 08 '21 at 13:21
I did but i'm not exactly sure how to use it within this usecase. As said, the total points are calculated during mapping and therefore I'm not able to sort the entire dataset upfront. — Max, Nov 08 '21 at 13:26

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '21 at 13:27

Oh i see, you basically want to sort the array. However you didn't prepare the array ahead of the time, that's the trouble you get yourself into.

To resolve this, let's prepare the array first.


  // this the the teams with points
  // you did good job of processing it
  let teams = data.teams.map(...)

  // sort the array
  // please test the sorting order
  teams.sort(function(a, b) {
    return Math.sign(b.point - a.point)
  })

  // this is the place for render
  return (
    <Tbody>
      {teams.map(team => (
        <Tr key={team.id}>
          ...
        </Tr>
      )}
    <Tbody>
  )

A general good practice is that, don't bring any logic code into the render layer. In React, it's about the line of the return, if you can put most of the logic above that line, it'll help you refactor your render later on.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 08 '21 at 13:33

For a clean code, create a few helper functions before the render / return part. It should looks something like this:

// Util functions outside component
const withPoints = (team, i) => {
   const points = team.match.map(match => 
       match.teams[0].name === team.name ? match.homePoints : 
       match.awayPoints).reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0)
   return {team, points}
};

const byPoints = (a, b) => b.points - a.points

// My component
const MyComponent = ({fetching, data}) => {

// temporary assignment in component body to make the JSX part cleaner
const teams = fetching ? 
    data.teams
      .map(withPoints)
      .sort(byPoints)
    : null

return <Tbody>
             {teams && teams.map((t, i) => (
                    <Tr key={t.team.id}>
                        <Td>{i + 1}</Td>
                        <Td>{t.team.name}</Td>
                        <Td>{t.points}</Td>
                    </Tr>
                ))}
      </Tbody>
}

This one was really helpful! Thank you very much. – Max Nov 08 '21 at 13:42 — Max, Nov 08 '21 at 13:42

Javascript React sorting complex array

2 Answers2