How to sort_by date in Ruby (not Rails)?

Question

I know that Rails has sorting methods built into ActiveRecord, but I am just writing a plain-old ruby script and would love to sort the records from an array by date.

The date would be stored in one of the cells of the multi-dimensional array.

What's the best way for me to approach this, so I can get to the point where I just do sort_by_date and I indicate either ASC or DESC?

I don't have to use the method sort_by_date, but the idea is I would like to be able to easily call a method on the collection and get the results I want.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

def sort_by_date(dates, direction="ASC")
  sorted = dates.sort
  sorted.reverse! if direction == "DESC"
  sorted
end

Answer 2

Something like this?

  class Array
    def sort_by_date(direction="ASC")
      if direction == "ASC"
        self.sort
      elsif direction == "DESC"
        self.sort {|a,b| b <=> a}
      else
        raise "Invalid direction. Specify either ASC or DESC."    
      end
    end
  end

A multi-dimensional array is just an array of arrays, so call this method on the 'dimension' you want to sort.