Vanilla JavaScript Shuffle Array

— 3 minute read

Now and then, you randomly need to shuffle an array in JavaScript. There is a super-easy way of doing it. We can use the sort() method and pass a random number.

So in today's tutorial, I will teach you how to shuffle an array in Javascript.

JavaScript Shuffle Array

As mentioned in the introduction, we will be using the sort method. In the end, we will have all items in a randomized order.

This method, without any parameters, will sort an array in a natural way like 123 and abc.

See the following example:

const charArray = ['d', 'f', 'a', 'c', 'b', 'e'];
const numArray = [1, 5, 3, 2, 4];

console.log(charArray.sort());
// ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f"]

console.log(numArray.sort());
// [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

As you can see, the Arrays get normalized sorted. But we can also pass a specific argument that we are going to use to randomize the array sorting.

const rockPaperScissor = ['💎', '📄', '✂️'];
console.log(rockPaperScissor.sort(() => 0.5 - Math.random()));

This will randomly shuffle the array. Let me explain in depth.

The sort function compares two elements, where element one is bigger than two. It will put the index lower or higher.

As for the .5 - Math.random() this will return a value between -0.5 and 0.5

So whenever the value is below 0, the element is placed before the other element. And otherwise, it will be positioned after the item.

Also, read about sorting an Array of Objects by Value

See the code example in this Codepen

You can test this and see it in action on this Codepen.

See the Pen Vanilla JavaScript Shuffle Array by Chris Bongers (@rebelchris) on CodePen.

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