Sort months ( with strings ) algorithm

Question

I have this months array:

[\"January\", \"March\", \"December\" , \"October\" ]

And I want to have it sorted like this:

[\"         


        

Answer 1

Have an array with the proper sort, and sort based on it.

Another solution (if your language supports it) is to have an associative array from month names to numbers (1..12) and use a custom comparator running sort on your array.

Solution in Perl :D

my @mon = qw( January February March April May June July August September October November December );
my $mon;
@{$mon}{@mon} = (0..$#mon);

sub by_month {
    $mon->{$a} <=> $mon->{$b};
}

sort by_month @data_to_sort

(although I'm sure a golfer could do that in < 30 characters)

And here's a solution in plain C : http://www.pnambic.com/CPS/SortAnal/html/MonOrder.html