How to sort a multi-dimensional array by the second array in descending order?

Question

I have an array in JavaScript.

var array = [[12,3],[10,2],[8,1],[12,3],[7,1],[6,1],[4,1],[10,2],[12,3]]

I would like to sort this array by the second value in descending order. The expected output is

[[12,3],[12,3],[12,3],[10,2][10,2],[8,1],[7,1],[6,1],[4,1]

I've tried

array.sort(function(array) {
  return array[1] - array[1]
}

Unfortunately, that didn't work.

Sorting single-dimensional arrays is easy but I'm not sure how to do it with multi-dimensional arrays.

Any help will be appreciated.

Dave · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-04 16:41:19Z

3

Your syntax for the sort function is a bit off. Your function should take two parameters. The following sorts descending by the second position in the inner arrays.

var array = [[12,3],[10,2],[8,1],[12,3],[7,1],[6,1],[4,1],[10,2],[12,3]];
console.log(array.sort(function(a, b) {
  return b[1] - a[1];
}));

edited Aug 4, 2016 at 16:41

answered Jun 8, 2015 at 15:22

Dave

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2 Comments

Richard Hamilton Over a year ago

Nice, you could also do return b[1] - a[1]

Dave Over a year ago

@RichardHamilton yes, it's actually better to return a number instead of a boolean in the sort comparison. I updated the answer to reflect that

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