Sort a two-dimensional array by the second value

Question

I have an array, and I want to sort by number field, not by name.

var showIt = [
  ["nuCycleDate",19561100],
  ["ndCycleDate",19460700],
  ["neCycleDate",0],
  ["nlCycleDate",0]
];

thank

Answer 1

You can provide sorta comparison function.

showIt.sort(function(a,b){
    return a[1] - b[1];
});

aand b- these are elements from your array. sort expects a return value that is greater than zero, zero, or less than zero. the first indicates that it aprecedes b, zero means that they are equal, the last option means bfirst.

Answer 2

This site advises against using arguments without reference to temporary variables. Try instead:

showIt.sort(function(a, b) {
    var x = a[1];
    var y = b[1];
    return x - y;
});