Generic way of sorting JSON array by attribute

Question

I found out how to sort a JSON array at http://www.devcurry.com/2010/05/sorting-json-array.html

Now I want to sort it in a generic way; so that my sorting function knows which attribute to sort by.

For example if my array is

[
  {
    "name": "John",
    "age": "16"
  },
  {
    "name": "Charles",
    "age": "26"
  }
]

I want to avoid writing different if cases to know if I should sort by name or age. I just want to pass a parameter 'name' or 'age' and my sorting function should know what to do.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Something like a:

function predicateBy(prop){
   return function(a,b){
      if (a[prop] > b[prop]){
          return 1;
      } else if(a[prop] < b[prop]){
          return -1;
      }
      return 0;
   }
}

//Usage
yourArray.sort( predicateBy("age") );
yourArray.sort( predicateBy("name") );