How to sort an array comprised of alpha-numeric strings?

Question

If I have the following array:

var num = [10% cats, 20% dogs, 30% fish, 40% turtles];

where a pct value is always concatenated to a label. Is there an easy way to ort from largest percentage to smallest? Unlike other similar questions, the format here is always xx% label

using .sort() in the usual .sort(function(a,b) {return b-a;}): doesn't work since these are not numerals?

output should be:

num = [40% turtles, 30% fish, 20% dogs, 10% cats];

are you certain that the first two characters would always be numbers ? — Karan Shishoo
– Karan Shishoo, Commented Jan 17, 2018 at 4:30
.sort((a,b) => Number(b.split('%')[0]) - Number(a.split('%')[0])) - that assumes that var num is fixed to be a valid array of strings ['10% cats', '20% dogs', '30% fish', '40% turtles'] — Jaromanda X
– Jaromanda X, Commented Jan 17, 2018 at 4:32
or more simply .sort((a,b) => parseFloat(b) - parseFloat(a)) — Jaromanda X
– Jaromanda X, Commented Jan 17, 2018 at 4:37
Yest, the 1st two characters are derived from user inputs (type=numbers) - so always starts with numerals (either 1 or 2 digit). — user1837608
– user1837608, Commented Jan 17, 2018 at 4:51

Hassan Imam · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-17 04:44:30Z

2

You can use localeCompare for sorting specifying the numeric option.

var num = ['10% cats', '20% dogs', '40% turtles', '30% fish'];
num.sort((a,b) => b.localeCompare(a, undefined, {numeric:true})); 
console.log(num);

answered Jan 17, 2018 at 4:44

Hassan Imam

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Comments

JasonB · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-17 05:09:20Z

1

You can use a sort function that converts the strings into numerical values before comparing them to sort by percentages.

var num = ['10% cats', '20% dogs', '30% fish', '40% turtles'];

num.sort( sortByPercentage );

console.log( num );

function sortByPercentage( a,b ) {
  a = parseFloat(a);
  b = parseFloat(b);
  return b-a;
}

edited Jan 17, 2018 at 5:09

answered Jan 17, 2018 at 4:35

JasonB

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2 Comments

Jaromanda X Over a year ago

if you know you will have integer percentages - you could always use parseFloat instead

user1837608 Over a year ago

Dang! forgot that parseFloat would strip everything but the numerals! Thank you! Worked perfectly!

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