Trying to sort a custom JavaScript object

Question

I\'m not too good at JS, but have survived thus far. I\'m creating a sort-of complex JS object and wanting to sort it. The object\'s structure looks like this:

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Answer 1

First of all, it's really hard to understand the structure of the object. Is this what it looks like?

[
  {  "46913872:2:Size" : 10 },
  {  "46913872:2:Hollow-to-Hem": 57},
  {  "46913872:1:Hips" : "34"}, ...
]

It looks like you want it to sort to

[
  {  "46913872:1:Hips" : "34"}, // all ids are the same here, but this index is 1
  {  "46913872:2:Hollow-to-Hem": 57}, // index is 2 but Hollow comes before Size
  {  "46913872:2:Size" : 10 },
]

The following solution works if I understood your object structure. Like ThatSteveGuy said, you can pass a comparator to your sort method. Since the object is so complicated, this is what you would do

attributes.sort(function(a, b){
  // Make sense of your objects a and b. See the inner function defined below
  var newA = improveObject(a);
  var newB = improveObject(b);

  if (newA.id > newB.id) { return 1; }
  if (newA.id < newB.id) { return -1; }
  // id is the same, check index
  if (newA.index > newB.index) { return 1; }
  if (newA.index < newB.index) { return -1; }
  // index is the same, check name
  if (newA.name > newB.name) { return 1; }
  if (newA.name < newB.name) { return -1; }
  // it's the same thing 
  return 0;

  // Turns {  "46913872:2:Size" : 10 }
  // into {id: 46913872, index: 2, name: "Size", value: 10}
  function improveObject(obj) {
    for (var key in obj) {
      var pieces = key.split(":");
      return {
        id: parseInt(pieces[0]),
        index: parseInt(pieces[1]),
        name: pieces[2],
        value: obj[key];
      };
    }
  }
});

However, the object really doesn't make sense. I would urge you to re-think its structure. Even if I didn't fully understand your object (you should have listed the actual json for the object), the example tells you all you need to know about sorting in js.