sort.md

chapter	6
pageNumber	57
description	The sort method sorts the items of an array in specific order. By default, it sorts the elements as strings and arranges them in ascending order based on their UTF-16 code unit values.

Sort

The sort method sorts the items of an array in a specific order (ascending or descending). By default, the sort method sorts the elements as strings and arranges them in ascending order based on their UTF-16 code unit values.

Here's the syntax for using sort:

array.sort([compareFunction]);

The compareFunction argument is optional and specifies a function that defines the sort order. If omitted, the elements are sorted in ascending order according to their string representation.

For example:

let city = ["California", "Barcelona", "Paris", "Kathmandu"];
let sortedCity = city.sort(); 

console.log(sortedCity);

// Result: ['Barcelona', 'California', 'Kathmandu', 'Paris']

{% hint style="info" %} Numbers can be sorted incorrectly when they are sorted. For example, "35" is bigger than "100", because "3" is bigger than "1". {% endhint %}

To fix the sorting issue in numbers, compare functions are used. Compare functions defines sort orders and return a negative, zero, or positive value based on arguments, like this:

• A negative value if a should be sorted before b
• A positive value if a should be sorted after b
• 0 if a and b are equal and their order doesn't matter

const points = [40, 100, 1, 5, 25, 10];
points.sort((a, b) => {return a-b});

// Result: [1, 5, 10, 25, 40, 100]

{% hint style="warning" %} The sort() method overrides the original array. {% endhint %}