Javascript - sort array based on another array

Question

One-Line answer.

itemsArray.sort(function(a, b){  
  return sortingArr.indexOf(a) - sortingArr.indexOf(b);
});

Or even shorter:

itemsArray.sort((a, b) => sortingArr.indexOf(a) - sortingArr.indexOf(b));

Something like:

items = [ 
    ['Anne', 'a'],
    ['Bob', 'b'],
    ['Henry', 'b'],
    ['Andrew', 'd'],
    ['Jason', 'c'],
    ['Thomas', 'b']
]

sorting = [ 'b', 'c', 'b', 'b', 'c', 'd' ];
result = []

sorting.forEach(function(key) {
    var found = false;
    items = items.filter(function(item) {
        if(!found && item[1] == key) {
            result.push(item);
            found = true;
            return false;
        } else 
            return true;
    })
})

result.forEach(function(item) {
    document.writeln(item[0]) /// Bob Jason Henry Thomas Andrew
})

Here's a shorter code, but it destroys the sorting array:

result = items.map(function(item) {
    var n = sorting.indexOf(item[1]);
    sorting[n] = '';
    return [n, item]
}).sort().map(function(j) { return j[1] })

If you use the native array sort function, you can pass in a custom comparator to be used when sorting the array. The comparator should return a negative number if the first value is less than the second, zero if they're equal, and a positive number if the first value is greater.

So if I understand the example you're giving correctly, you could do something like:

function sortFunc(a, b) {
  var sortingArr = [ 'b', 'c', 'b', 'b', 'c', 'd' ];
  return sortingArr.indexOf(a[1]) - sortingArr.indexOf(b[1]);
}

itemsArray.sort(sortFunc);

Case 1: Original Question (No Libraries)

Plenty of other answers that work. :)

Case 2: Original Question (Lodash.js or Underscore.js)

var groups = _.groupBy(itemArray, 1);
var result = _.map(sortArray, function (i) { return groups[i].shift(); });

Case 3: Sort Array1 as if it were Array2

I'm guessing that most people came here looking for an equivalent to PHP's array_multisort (I did) so I thought I'd post that answer as well. There are a couple options:

1. There's an existing JS implementation of array_multisort(). Thanks to @Adnan for pointing it out in the comments. It is pretty large, though.

2. Write your own. (JSFiddle demo)

function refSort (targetData, refData) {
  // Create an array of indices [0, 1, 2, ...N].
  var indices = Object.keys(refData);

  // Sort array of indices according to the reference data.
  indices.sort(function(indexA, indexB) {
    if (refData[indexA] < refData[indexB]) {
      return -1;
    } else if (refData[indexA] > refData[indexB]) {
      return 1;
    }
    return 0;
  });

  // Map array of indices to corresponding values of the target array.
  return indices.map(function(index) {
    return targetData[index];
  });
}

3. Lodash.js or Underscore.js (both popular, smaller libraries that focus on performance) offer helper functions that allow you to do this:

    var result = _.chain(sortArray)
      .pairs()
      .sortBy(1)
      .map(function (i) { return itemArray[i[0]]; })
      .value();

...Which will (1) group the sortArray into [index, value] pairs, (2) sort them by the value (you can also provide a callback here), (3) replace each of the pairs with the item from the itemArray at the index the pair originated from.

this is probably too late but, you could also use some modified version of the code below in ES6 style. This code is for arrays like:

var arrayToBeSorted = [1,2,3,4,5];
var arrayWithReferenceOrder = [3,5,8,9];

The actual operation :

arrayToBeSorted = arrayWithReferenceOrder.filter(v => arrayToBeSorted.includes(v));

The actual operation in ES5 :

arrayToBeSorted = arrayWithReferenceOrder.filter(function(v) {
    return arrayToBeSorted.includes(v);
});

Should result in arrayToBeSorted = [3,5]

Does not destroy the reference array.

Why not something like

//array1: array of elements to be sorted
//array2: array with the indexes

array1 = array2.map((object, i) => array1[object]);

The map function may not be available on all versions of Javascript

function sortFunc(a, b) {
  var sortingArr = ["A", "B", "C"];
  return sortingArr.indexOf(a.type) - sortingArr.indexOf(b.type);
}

const itemsArray = [
  {
    type: "A",
  },
  {
    type: "C",
  },
  {
    type: "B",
  },
];
console.log(itemsArray);
itemsArray.sort(sortFunc);
console.log(itemsArray);