How to find the xth greatest element in an array of integers?

Question

I'm trying to create a function that finds the xth greatest element in an array. The code below works great if all integers are positive but messes up once a negative number is in the array. For example:

When calling the function with fun([-10,-25,-47,-36,0], 1). The output should be 0 but it gives -47.

How can I make this function work for both positive and negative numbers?

const fun = (x, y) => {
    let sorted = x.sort(function(a, b) {
        return a-b;
    });

    let el = x[y -1];

    console.log(el);    
}

x being the array of integers and y being the xth greatest element

Answer 1

To sort the numbers in descending order, you should use b - a (second element minus first element).

This allows you to grab the greatest number in the array, like this:

 const greatest = (x, y) => { // After this call, the array `x` will be sorted x.sort(function(a, b) { return b - a; }); let el = x[y - 1]; console.log(el); return el; } // First greatest number among those in the array greatest([1, 3, 5], 1); // excepted: 5 greatest([30, 5, 11], 1); // excepted: 30 greatest([-3, -19, -11], 1); // excepted: -3 greatest([1000000, 999999, -1000000], 1); // excepted: 1000000 greatest([Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY, 0, 10000 * 10000 * 10000], 1); // excepted: Infinity greatest([Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY, 0, -10000 * 10000 * 10000], 1); // excepted: 0 greatest([Number.NaN, Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY, Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY], 1); // excepted: NaN