Optimized javascript code to find 3 largest element and its indexes in array?

Question

I need a more optimized version of this javascript code to find the 3 largest values in an array. I need to get the indexes of the largest numbers. Are there any other easier methods to solve the problem?

var maxIndex = new Array();
var maxPoints = new Array();
var scoreByPattern = new Array(93, 17, 56, 91, 98, 33, 9, 38, 55, 78, 29, 81, 60);

function findLargest3() {
  maxPoints[0] = 0;
  maxPoints[1] = 0;
  maxPoints[2] = 0; 
  
  for (i = 0; i < scoreByPattern.length; i++) {
    if (scoreByPattern[i] > maxPoints[0]) {
      maxPoints[0] = scoreByPattern[i];
      maxIndex[0] = i;
    }
  }

  for (i = 0; i < scoreByPattern.length; i++) {
    if (scoreByPattern[i] > maxPoints[1] && scoreByPattern[i] < maxPoints[0]) {
      maxPoints[1] = scoreByPattern[i];
      maxIndex[1] = i;
    }
  }

  for (i = 0; i < scoreByPattern.length; i++) {
    if (scoreByPattern[i] > maxPoints[2] && scoreByPattern[i] < maxPoints[1]) {
      maxPoints[2] = scoreByPattern[i];
      maxIndex[2] = i;
    }
  }

  console.log(scoreByPattern + "/******/" + maxPoints[0] + "/" + maxPoints[1] + "/" + maxPoints[2]);
  //alert(maxIndex);
}

findLargest3();

Answer 1

The best way is to use a combination of sort and slice:

This simple one liner will solve your problem.

[1, -5, 2, 8, 17, 0, -2].sort(function(a, b){return b - a}).slice(0, 3)

So if you have an array and want to find N biggest values:

arr.sort(function(a, b){return b - a}).slice(0, n)

And for N smallest values:

arr.sort(function(a, b){return a - b}).slice(0, n)

Answer 2

Modified version

I have modified my answer to make it more generic. It searches for the indices of the n largest numbers of elements in the array:

var scoreByPattern = [93,255,17,56,91,98,33,9,38,55,78,29,81,60];

function findIndicesOfMax(inp, count) {
    var outp = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < inp.length; i++) {
        outp.push(i); // add index to output array
        if (outp.length > count) {
            outp.sort(function(a, b) { return inp[b] - inp[a]; }); // descending sort the output array
            outp.pop(); // remove the last index (index of smallest element in output array)
        }
    }
    return outp;
}

// show original array
console.log(scoreByPattern);

// get indices of 3 greatest elements
var indices = findIndicesOfMax(scoreByPattern, 3);
console.log(indices);

// show 3 greatest scores
for (var i = 0; i < indices.length; i++)
    console.log(scoreByPattern[indices[i]]);

Here is a jsFiddle