JavaScript Sort Array of Objects by Value

— 5 minute read

Ever had an array of objects and needed to sort them based on a specific value? This is an issue everyone will run into very often.

In our JavaScript example we will look at a price list. Then we will sort the array by price.

If you are looking to randomly shuffle an array read this article.

JavaScript Sort Array of Objects

Let's start with the following array of objects:

const products = [
  {
    color: 'white',
    price: 10,
    name: 'Basic T-shirt',
  },
  {
    color: 'red',
    price: 5,
    name: 'Cheap T-shirt',
  },
  {
    color: 'black',
    price: 50,
    name: 'Exclusive T-shirt',
  },
];

So, seeing this array, we already have a two options of sorting it:

  1. we can sort based on color
  2. we sort by price

How do we now sort the array based on the price values?

Sort Array by Color

We can use the sort manipulator for Arrays.

products.sort((a, b) => (a.color > b.color ? 1 : -1));

As you can see a straightforward sorting function. It will sort based on color and replace the values until it's done. You can think of this function as a manual if...else loop, but then all done for you.

Sort Array by Price

As for the price we can sort the array with the following code:

products.sort((a, b) => (a.price > b.price ? 1 : -1));

Sorting on the second parameter

So let's say we want to sort on color, but if the color is the same, then we want to sort on price:

const productsPrice = [
  {
    color: 'white',
    price: 10,
    name: 'Basic T-shirt',
  },
  {
    color: 'white',
    price: 5,
    name: 'Cheap T-shirt',
  },
  {
    color: 'black',
    price: 50,
    name: 'Exclusive T-shirt',
  },
];

productsPrice.sort((a, b) =>
  a.color > b.color ? 1 : a.color === b.color ? (a.price > b.price ? 1 : -1) : -1
);

So the same setup, but we are using the callback function to check if the color is the same. We then need to check on price as well!

See the code examples in this Codepen

You can have a play with the following Codepen.

See the Pen JavaScript Sort Array of Objects by Value by Chris Bongers (@rebelchris) on CodePen.

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