Javascript sorting of multiple digit numbers

Question

I have a ul that I'm trying to sort using javascript (or jQuery if easier or necessary):

<ul>
  <li>1 - 5 days</li>
  <li>11 - 15 days</li>
  <li>16 - 20 days</li>
  <li>6 days - 10 days</li>
</ul>

The order I'm hoping for is: 1 - 5 days, 6 days - 10 days, 11 - 15 days, 16 - 20 days.

Now, I could always change the single digit items so that 1 - 5 is 01 - 05, but aesthetically I'm hoping theres a way around that!

I've tried the process described in What is the easiest way to order a <UL>/<OL> in jQuery?, but it doesn't apply for this case where I have multiple digits mixed in with text.

If it helps as a starting point: http://jsfiddle.net/5gHet/

Thanks so much! Would really appreciate any ideas.

Answer 1

Use parseInt to convert the string to the the first number that appears.

items.sort(function(a,b){
  var keyA = parseInt($(a).text(), 10);
  var keyB = parseInt($(b).text(), 10);

  if (keyA < keyB) return -1;
  if (keyA > keyB) return 1;
  return 0;
});

FYI, if there were non-numeric/whitespace characters that came before the first number, parseInt() would return NaN, so you'd need to extract the number manually.