Algorithm of JavaScript “sort()” Function

Question

Recently when I was working with JavaScript \"sort()\" function, I found in one of the tutorials that this function does not sort the numbers properly. Instead to sort numbe

Answer 1

The function sort will sort your array in an alphabetical sort order, even if it consists of integers; that's the reason why your array is sorted like that by calling sort without a parameter.

sortOrder is a comparison function that is used to define a new sort order for the array; this function will return

• 0, if a and b are of the same value
• a value > 0, if a has a bigger value than b
• a value < 0, if a has a smaller value than b

In JavaScript, "1" - "2" will return -1, which is a number, and not a string anymore; by using the comparison function sortOrder on your array consisting of numbers wrapped in strings, you're ordering the array in a numerical sort order, thus resulting in 1,5,10,25,40,100, and not in 1,10,100,25,40,5