How to sort an (associative) array by value? [duplicate]

Question

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How to sort an associative array by its values in Javascript?

So first off I know technically Javascript doesn't have associative arrays, but I wasn't sure how to title it and get the right idea across.

So here is the code I have,

var status = new Array();
status['BOB'] = 10
status['TOM'] = 3
status['ROB'] = 22
status['JON'] = 7

And I want to sort it by value such that when I loop through it later on ROB comes first, then BOB, etc.

I've tried,

status.sort()
status.sort(function(a, b){return a[1] - b[1];});

But none of them seem to actually DO anything.

Printing the array out to the console before and after result in it coming out in the same order.

Answer 1

Arrays can only have numeric indexes. You'd need to rewrite this as either an Object, or an Array of Objects.

var status = new Object();
status['BOB'] = 10
status['TOM'] = 3
status['ROB'] = 22
status['JON'] = 7

or

var status = new Array();
status.push({name: 'BOB', val: 10});
status.push({name: 'TOM', val: 3});
status.push({name: 'ROB', val: 22});
status.push({name: 'JON', val: 7});

If you like the status.push method, you can sort it with:

status.sort(function(a,b) {
    return a.val - b.val;
});