How to sort an array of integers correctly

ghz 1years ago ⋅ 7268 views

Question

Trying to get the highest and lowest value from an array that I know will contain only integers seems to be harder than I thought.

var numArray = [140000, 104, 99];
numArray = numArray.sort();
console.log(numArray)

I'd expect this to show 99, 104, 140000. Instead it shows 104, 140000, 99. So it seems the sort is handling the values as strings.

Is there a way to get the sort function to actually sort on integer value?

Answer

By default, the sort method sorts elements alphabetically. To sort numerically just add a new method which handles numeric sorts (sortNumber, shown below) -

var numArray = [140000, 104, 99];
numArray.sort(function(a, b) {
  return a - b;
});

console.log(numArray);

Documentation:

Mozilla [Array.prototype.sort()](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/sort) recommends this compare function for arrays that don't contain Infinity or NaN. (Because Infinity - Infinity is NaN, not 0).

Also examples of sorting objects by key.

#javascript