Sorting a JSON object in Javascript

Question

I've been looking for a while and want a way to sort a JSON object like this:

{
    method: 'artist.getInfo',
    artist: 'Green Day',
    format: 'json',
    api_key: 'fa3af76b9396d0091c9c41ebe3c63716'
}

and sort is alphabetically by name to get:

{
    api_key: 'fa3af76b9396d0091c9c41ebe3c63716',
    artist: 'Green Day',
    format: 'json',
    method: 'artist.getInfo'
}

I can't find any code that will do this. Can anyone give me some help?

Answer 1

http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/arraysort.shtml - Decent tutorial on sorting complex JS objects.

http://www.highdots.com/forums/javascript/re-sorting-json-data-270187.html - Another example

---

Here is a full reference on the sort function if you want the details

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Core%5FJavaScript%5F1.5%5FReference/Global%5FObjects/Array/sort

-Last edit, I swear!

Answer 2

By definition, the order of keys in an object is undefined, so you probably won't be able to do that in a way that is future-proof. Instead, you should think about sorting these keys when the object is actually being displayed to the user. Whatever sort order it uses internally doesn't really matter anyway.

By convention, most browsers will retain the order of keys in an object in the order that they were added. So, you could do this, but don't expect it to always work:

function sortObject(o) {
    var sorted = {},
    key, a = [];

    for (key in o) {
     if (o.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
      a.push(key);
     }
    }

    a.sort();

    for (key = 0; key < a.length; key++) {
     sorted[a[key]] = o[a[key]];
    }
    return sorted;
}

Does that help?

Answer 3

this function takes an object and returns a sorted array of arrays of the form [key,value]

function (o) {
   var a = [],i, tmp;
   for(i in o){ 
     if(o.hasOwnProperty(i)){
         a.push([i,o[i]);
     }
   }
   a.sort(function(a,b){ return a[0]>b[0]?1:-1; })
   return a;
}

The object data structure does not have a well defined order. In mathematical terms, the collection of keys in an object are an Unordered Set, and should be treated as such. If you want to define order, you SHOULD use an array, because an array having an order is an assumption you can rely on. An object having some kind of order is something that is left to the whims of the implementation.