sort an array of arrays based on another array

October 13, 2023

How can I sort an array of arrays based on another array?

Example:

const dataset = [
  [ 'red', [{name: 'Apple car'}] ], 
  [ 'blue', [{name: 'Toothpiece'}] ],
  [ 'orange', [{name: 'Sun'}] ],
  [ 'yellow', [{name: 'Cat'}] ], 
] 
const order = ['blue', 'yellow', 'red', 'orange']

const sortedDataset = sortArrayBasedOnAnother(dataset, order)
// [
//   [ 'blue', [{name: 'Toothpiece'}] ],
//   [ 'yellow', [{name: 'Cat'}] ],
//   [ 'red', [{name: 'Apple car'}] ], 
//   [ 'orange', [{name: 'Sun'}] ],
// ]

This is what I tried but it doesn’t work:

function sortArrayBasedOnAnother(dataset, order) {
  return order.filter((value) => dataset[0].includes(value))
}

note: dataset is an array of arrays because it’s computed from groupBy of Lodash

>Solution :

Array.sort() can pass in a custom compare function then the custom function will check the positions of the elements in the second array and use that to determine the sorting order.

function sortArrayBasedOnAnother(dataset, order) {
  dataset.sort((a, b) => {
    let indexA = order.indexOf(a[0]);
    let indexB = order.indexOf(b[0]);
    return indexA - indexB; //will return negative, 0, or positive value depending on their positions inorder array
  });
  return dataset;
}

then calling the function with your dataset and order arrays and it will return the sorted dataset.