Question

I’d really like to handle this without monkey-patching but I haven’t been able to find another option yet.

I have an array (in Ruby) that I need to sort by multiple conditions. I know how to use the sort method and I’ve used the trick on sorting using an array of options to sort by multiple conditions. However, in this case I need the first condition to sort ascending and the second to sort descending. For example:

ordered_list = [[1, 2], [1, 1], [2, 1]] 

Any suggestions?

Edit: Just realized I should mention that I can’t easily compare the first and second values (I’m actually working with object attributes here). So for a simple example it’s more like:

ordered_list = [[1, 'b'], [1, 'a'], [2, 'a']] 

Answer 1

How about:

  ordered_list = [[1, 'b'], [1, 'a'], [2, 'a']] ordered_list.sort! do |a,b|   [a[0],b[1]] <=> [b[0], a[1]] end