Cannot sort array into ascending numeric order in Javascript

Question

I'm trying to sort an array shown below using the .sort() method in JavaScript.

var addresses = [
    "5 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan",     
    "51 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", 
    "53 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", 
    "55 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", 
    "57 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", 
    "7 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", 
    "9 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan"
];

However, after the .sort method has been invoked and I write the array to the document. The array doesn't seem to change into ascending numeric order.

Can anyone see where I'm going wrong?

Answer 1

Your array contains strings, so they'll be sorted alphabetically instead of numerically. You'll want to use a sorting function as the parameter of array.sort and parse out the house number.

Answer 2

Got it working in the end with the following code shown below:

function naturalCompare(a, b) {
    var ax = [], bx = [];

    a.replace(/(\d+)|(\D+)/g, function(_, $1, $2) { ax.push([$1 || Infinity, $2 || ""]) });
    b.replace(/(\d+)|(\D+)/g, function(_, $1, $2) { bx.push([$1 || Infinity, $2 || ""]) });

    while(ax.length && bx.length) {
        var an = ax.shift();
        var bn = bx.shift();
        var nn = (an[0] - bn[0]) || an[1].localeCompare(bn[1]);
        if(nn) return nn;
    }

    return ax.length - bx.length;
}

addresses = addresses.sort(naturalCompare);

Answer 3

You could use this sort function that compare the first numbers of the strings

 var addresses = [ "5 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "51 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "53 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "55 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "57 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "7 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "9 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan" ]; addresses.sort(function(a, b){ return +a.split(" ")[0] - +b.split(" ")[0]; }); console.log(addresses); 

Answer 4

check below example

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

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_sort.asp

Answer 5

try this

 var addresses = [ "5 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "51 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "53 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "55 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "57 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "7 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan", "9 Glyn Eiddew, , , , Llanbradach, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan" ]; addresses.sort(function(a, b){ return a.split(' ')[0] - b.split(' ')[0] })