Sorting on a custom order

Question

I was wondering how I can sort an array on a custom order, not alphabetical. Imagine you have this array/object:

var somethingToSort = [{
    type: \"fruit\"         


        

Answer 1

For people looking to simply sort an array of strings in a custom order, try this function below:

// sorting fn
const applyCustomOrder = (arr, desiredOrder) => {
  const orderForIndexVals = desiredOrder.slice(0).reverse();
  arr.sort((a, b) => {
    const aIndex = -orderForIndexVals.indexOf(a);
    const bIndex = -orderForIndexVals.indexOf(b);
    return aIndex - bIndex;
  });
}

// example use
const orderIWant = ['cat', 'elephant', 'dog'];
const arrayToSort = ['elephant', 'dog', 'cat'];


applyCustomOrder(arrayToSort, orderIWant);

This will sort the array in the order specified. Two sample input / outputs to this function:

Example 1:

const orderIWant = ['cat', 'elephant', 'dog'] 
const arrayToSort = ['mouse', 'elephant', 'dog', 'cat'];
applyCustomOrder(arrayToSort, orderIWant); 
console.log(arrayToSort); // ["cat", "elephant", "dog", "mouse"]

Example 2:

const orderIWant = ['cat', 'elephant', 'dog'];
const arrayToSort = ['mouse', 'elephant', 'rabbit', 'dog', 'cat'];
applyCustomOrder(arrayToSort, orderIWant); 
console.log(arrayToSort); /* ["cat", "elephant", "dog", "mouse", 
"rabbit"] */