How to sort an array of integers correctly

Question

Trying to get the highest and lowest value from an array that I know will contain only integers seems to be harder than I thought.

var numArray = [140000, 104, 99]; numArray = numArray.sort(); console.log(numArray)

I'd expect this to show 99, 104, 140000. Instead it shows 104, 140000, 99. So it seems the sort is handling the values as strings.

Is there a way to get the sort function to actually sort on integer value?

Answer 1

Just building on all of the above answers, they can also be done in one line like this:

var numArray = [140000, 104, 99]; numArray = numArray.sort(function (a, b) {  return a - b;  });  //outputs: 99, 104, 140000 

Answer 2

By default, the sort method sorts elements alphabetically. To sort numerically just add a new method which handles numeric sorts (sortNumber, shown below) -

var numArray = [140000, 104, 99]; numArray.sort(function(a, b) {   return a - b; });  console.log(numArray);

Documentation:

Mozilla Array.prototype.sort() recommends this compare function for arrays that don't contain Infinity or NaN. (Because Infinity - Infinity is NaN, not 0).

Also examples of sorting objects by key.