MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004 - ACTIONSCRIPT - Page 282

282 Chapter 12: ActionScript Dictionary
Description
Method; sorts the elements in an array. Flash sorts according to ASCII (Unicode) values. If either
of the elements being compared does not contain the field specified in the
fieldName parameter,
the field is assumed to be
undefined, and the elements are placed consecutively in the sorted
array in no particular order.
By default,
Array.sort() works as follows:
• Sorting is case sensitive (Z precedes a).
• Sorting is ascending (a precedes b).
• The array is modified to reflect the sort order; multiple elements that have identical sort fields
are placed consecutively in the sorted array in no particular order.
• Numeric fields are sorted as if they were strings, so 100 precedes 99, because “1” is a lower
string value than “9”.
• Nothing is returned.
If you want to sort in another way, create a function to do the sorting and pass its name as the
compareFunction parameter. You might do this, for example, if you want to sort alphabetically
by last name, ascending, and then by ZIP code, descending.
If you want to specify one or more fields on which to sort, using either the default sort or the
options parameter, use Array.sortOn().
Example
Usage 1: The following example shows the use of Array.sort() with and without a value passed
for
option:
var fruits_array = ["oranges", "apples", "strawberries", "pineapples",
"cherries"];
trace(fruits_array.join());
fruits_array.sort();
trace(fruits_array.join());
fruits_array.sort(Array.DESCENDING);
trace(fruits_array.join());
The Output panel displays the following results:
oranges,apples,strawberries,pineapples,cherries// original array
apples,cherries,oranges,pineapples,strawberries// default sort
strawberries,pineapples,oranges,cherries,apples// descending sort
Usage 2: The following example uses Array.sort() with a compare function.
var passwords = ["mom:glam","ana:ring","jay:mag","anne:home","regina:silly"];
function order (a,b){
//Entries to be sorted are in form name:password
//Sort using only the name part of the entry as a key.
var name1 =a.split(":")[0 ];
var name2 =b.split(":")[0 ];
if (name1 <name2){
return -1;
}
else if (name1 >name2){
return 1;
}
else {
return 0;