Question

I have 5 variables: a, b, c, d and e, and their values depend on the user input. Now I want to sort these variables depending on their values in descending order and then print them. For example, I have the following values:

a = 1, b = 1.5, c = 1, d = 3, e = 2

I want to print a list like this:

d = 3
e = 2
b = 1.5
a = 1
c = 1

I have tried to achieve this using associative-array but I failed since it’s not indexed. Could you please help me to solve this issue?

Answer 1

Well, something like

var vars = {a: 1, b: 1.5, c: 1, d: 3, e: 2}, keys = Object.keys(vars);
keys.sort(function (a, b) {
    return vars[b] - vars[a];
});
keys.forEach(function (key) {
    console.log(key + ' = ' + vars[key]);
});

seems to do the trick nicely. Note that this uses ES5 Object.keys, which isn’t supported in some browsers, so if you want it to run in Opera and IE < 9, you’ll have to do something like

if (typeof Object.keys !== 'function') {
    Object.keys = function (obj) {
        var keys = [], i;
        for (i in obj) {
            if (obj.hasOwnProperty(i)) {
                keys.push(i);
            }
        }
        return keys;
    };
}

Oh, and it also uses ES5 forEach, so if you need to work with IE < 9, you’ll have to do something like

if (typeof Array.prototype.forEach !== 'function') {
    Array.prototype.forEach = function (func) {
        for (var i = 0, l = this.length; i < l; i += 1) {
            func(this[i], i);
        }
    };
}