Question

I have the associative array:

array["sub2"] = 1;
array["sub0"] = -1;
array["sub1"] = 0;
array["sub3"] = 1;
array["sub4"] = 0;

What is the most elegant way to sort (descending) by its values where the result would be an array with the respective indices in this order:

sub2, sub3, sub1, sub4, sub0

Answer 1

Javascript doesn’t have “associative arrays” the way you’re thinking of them. Instead, you simply have the ability to set object properties using array-like syntax (as in your example), plus the ability to iterate over an object’s properties.

The upshot of this is that there is no guarantee as to the order in which you iterate over the properties, so there is nothing like a sort for them. Instead, you’ll need to convert your object properties into a “true” array (which does guarantee order). Here’s a code snippet for converting an object into an array of two-tuples (two-element arrays), sorting it as you describe, then iterating over it:

var tuples = [];

for (var key in obj) tuples.push([key, obj[key]]);

tuples.sort(function(a, b) {
    a = a[1];
    b = b[1];

    return a < b ? -1 : (a > b ? 1 : 0);
});

for (var i = 0; i < tuples.length; i++) {
    var key = tuples[i][0];
    var value = tuples[i][1];

    // do something with key and value
}

You may find it more natural to wrap this in a function which takes a callback:

function bySortedValue(obj, callback, context) {
  var tuples = [];

  for (var key in obj) tuples.push([key, obj[key]]);

  tuples.sort(function(a, b) {
    return a[1] < b[1] ? 1 : a[1] > b[1] ? -1 : 0
  });

  var length = tuples.length;
  while (length--) callback.call(context, tuples[length][0], tuples[length][1]);
}

bySortedValue({
  foo: 1,
  bar: 7,
  baz: 3
}, function(key, value) {
  document.getElementById('res').innerHTML += `${key}: ${value}<br>`
});

<p id='res'>Result:<br/><br/><p>