Sort unordered list with Javascript / jQuery

Question

I am creating unordered lists dynamically. This creates an output similar to this:

<ul>
    <li>item 1</li>
    <li>item 2</li>
    <li>item 3</li>
        <ul>
            <li>Item 3.1</li>
            <li>Item 3.2</li>
            <li>Item 3.3</li>
        </ul>
    <li>item 4</li>
    <li>Item 5</li>
        <ul>
            <li>Item 5.1</li>
            <li>Item 5.2</li>
            <li>Item 5.3</li>
        </ul>
    <li>item 6</li>
</ul>

I would like to be able to sort through them, after they are created, so that any item that has a sublist(for example item 3 & item 5) will go to the top of the list, for output like this:

<ul>
    <li>item 3</li>
        <ul>
            <li>Item 3.1</li>
            <li>Item 3.2</li>
            <li>Item 3.3</li>
        </ul>
    <li>Item 5</li>
        <ul>
            <li>Item 5.1</li>
            <li>Item 5.2</li>
            <li>Item 5.3</li>
        </ul>
    <li>item 1</li>
    <li>item 2</li>
    <li>item 4</li> 
    <li>item 6</li>
</ul>

I am thinking I can do this with jQuery or the javascript .sort() method but I'm not sure where to go with it. Any advice?

Answer 1

Firstly you should put your sublists inside their parent element and give a class to your list, like this:

<ul class="autoReorder">
   <li>item 1</li>
   <li>item 2</li>
   <li>item 3
      <ul>
         <li>Item 3.1</li>
         <li>Item 3.2</li>
         <li>Item 3.3</li>
      </ul>
   </li>
   <li>item 4</li>
   <li>Item 5
      <ul>
         <li>Item 5.1</li>
         <li>Item 5.2</li>
         <li>Item 5.3</li>
      </ul>
   </li>
   <li>item 6</li>
</ul>

Then in jQuery here is your solution:

$(document).ready(function(){
   $('ul.autoReorder').find('li ul').parent().prependTo('ul.autoReorder');
});