Javascript - sort array based on another array

Question

Is it possible to sort and rearrange an array that looks like this:

itemsArray = [ 
    [\'Anne\', \'a\'],
    [\'Bob\', \'b\'],
    [\'Henry\', \'b\'],
             


        

Answer 1

Case 1: Original Question (No Libraries)

Plenty of other answers that work. :)

Case 2: Original Question (Lodash.js or Underscore.js)

var groups = _.groupBy(itemArray, 1);
var result = _.map(sortArray, function (i) { return groups[i].shift(); });

Case 3: Sort Array1 as if it were Array2

I'm guessing that most people came here looking for an equivalent to PHP's array_multisort (I did) so I thought I'd post that answer as well. There are a couple options:

1. There's an existing JS implementation of array_multisort(). Thanks to @Adnan for pointing it out in the comments. It is pretty large, though.

2. Write your own. (JSFiddle demo)

function refSort (targetData, refData) {
  // Create an array of indices [0, 1, 2, ...N].
  var indices = Object.keys(refData);

  // Sort array of indices according to the reference data.
  indices.sort(function(indexA, indexB) {
    if (refData[indexA] < refData[indexB]) {
      return -1;
    } else if (refData[indexA] > refData[indexB]) {
      return 1;
    }
    return 0;
  });

  // Map array of indices to corresponding values of the target array.
  return indices.map(function(index) {
    return targetData[index];
  });
}

3. Lodash.js or Underscore.js (both popular, smaller libraries that focus on performance) offer helper functions that allow you to do this:

    var result = _.chain(sortArray)
      .pairs()
      .sortBy(1)
      .map(function (i) { return itemArray[i[0]]; })
      .value();

...Which will (1) group the sortArray into [index, value] pairs, (2) sort them by the value (you can also provide a callback here), (3) replace each of the pairs with the item from the itemArray at the index the pair originated from.