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How to sort an array based on the length of each element?

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How do you sort an array by length of an element?

To sort the array by its string length, we can use the Array. sort() method by passing compare function as an argument. If the compare function return value is a. length - b.

How do I sort list by Len?

Sort the list by passing key to the sort(key = len) method of the list. We have to pass len as key for the sort() method as we are sorting the list based on the length of the string. sort() method will sort the list in place.

How do you sort an array of elements?

rsort() - sort arrays in descending order. asort() - sort associative arrays in ascending order, according to the value. ksort() - sort associative arrays in ascending order, according to the key. arsort() - sort associative arrays in descending order, according to the value.


You can use Array.sort method to sort the array. A sorting function that considers the length of string as the sorting criteria can be used as follows:

arr.sort(function(a, b){
  // ASC  -> a.length - b.length
  // DESC -> b.length - a.length
  return b.length - a.length;
});

Note: sorting ["a", "b", "c"] by length of string is not guaranteed to return ["a", "b", "c"]. According to the specs:

The sort is not necessarily stable (that is, elements that compare equal do not necessarily remain in their original order).

If the objective is to sort by length then by dictionary order you must specify additional criteria:

["c", "a", "b"].sort(function(a, b) {
  return a.length - b.length || // sort by length, if equal then
         a.localeCompare(b);    // sort by dictionary order
});

We can use Array.sort method to sort this array.

ES5 solution

var array = ["ab", "abcdefgh", "abcd"];

array.sort(function(a, b){return b.length - a.length});

console.log(JSON.stringify(array, null, '\t'));

For ascending sort order: a.length - b.length

For descending sort order: b.length - a.length

ES6 solution

Attention: not all browsers can understand ES6 code!

In ES6 we can use an arrow function expressions.

let array = ["ab", "abcdefgh", "abcd"];

array.sort((a, b) => b.length - a.length);

console.log(JSON.stringify(array, null, '\t'));

Here is the sort, depending on the length of a string with javascript as you asked:

[the solution of the problem by bubble sort][1]

[1]: http://jsfiddle.net/sssonline2/vcme3/2/enter code here


#created a sorting function to sort by length of elements of list
def sort_len(a):
    num = len(a)
    d = {}
    i = 0
    while i<num:
        d[i] = len(a[i])
        i += 1
    b = list(d.values())
    b.sort()
    c = []
    for i in b:
        for j in range(num):
            if j in list(d.keys()):
                if d[j] == i:
                    c.append(a[j])
                    d.pop(j)
    return c

If you want to preserve the order of the element with the same length as the original array, use bubble sort.

Input = ["ab","cdc","abcd","de"];

Output  = ["ab","cd","cdc","abcd"]

Function:

function bubbleSort(strArray){
  const arrayLength = Object.keys(strArray).length;
    var swapp;
    var newLen = arrayLength-1;
    var sortedStrArrByLenght=strArray;
    do {
        swapp = false;
        for (var i=0; i < newLen; i++)
        {
            if (sortedStrArrByLenght[i].length > sortedStrArrByLenght[i+1].length)
            {
               var temp = sortedStrArrByLenght[i];
               sortedStrArrByLenght[i] = sortedStrArrByLenght[i+1];
               sortedStrArrByLenght[i+1] = temp;
               swapp = true;
            }
        }
        newLen--;
    } while (swap);
  return sortedStrArrByLenght;
}

With modern JavaScript you can do like this:

Descending order

const arr = [
  "ab",
  "abcdefgh",
  "abcd",
  "abcdefghijklm"
];

arr.sort((a, b) => b.length - a.length);

console.log(JSON.stringify(arr, null, 2));

Ascending Order - Just switch the a with b

const arr = [
  "ab",
  "abcdefgh",
  "abcd",
  "abcdefghijklm"
];

arr.sort((a, b) => a.length - b.length);

console.log(JSON.stringify(arr, null, 2));