I'm using an array as a temporary inventory (as part of a game). There are items and values, each being a string. They are always followed.
The value or quantity determines how much of that item you have.
For example: inventoryArray = ['bananas', '5', 'berries', '8', 'apples','3']
In the example above you would have a banana with a quantity of 5
My goal is to sort the array by quantity. So a function could return ['berries', '8','bananas', '5' 'apples','3']
Thanks!
As others have pointed out, this seems like A Bad Idea™ and you really should consider using a more suitable data structure.
Having said that, there are ways to do it.
In the snippet below I first convert the array to an object via reduce so you end up with a structure like this (which you should consider using in the first place):
{
bananas: 5,
berries: 8,
apples: 3
}
I then sort that object's entries, producing a sorted array of pairs:
[
['apples', 3],
['bananas', 5],
['berries', 8],
]
Finally, flattening that array produces the result you're after:
['apples', 3, 'bananas', 5, 'berries', 8]
Again, I agree with the comments above suggesting that this calls for a more suitable data structure, but if you have to do it this way for some reason you could.
const inventoryArray = ['bananas', '5', 'berries', '8', 'apples','3']
const quantities = inventoryArray.reduce((acc, item, index, arr) => {
// skip odd indices (the quantities)
if (index % 2 === 1) {
return acc;
}
// add the product and qty (index + 1) to the result
return {
...acc,
[item]: Number(arr[index + 1])
}
}, {});
// sort the key value pairs
const arr = Object.entries(quantities).sort(([, qtyA], [, qtyB]) => qtyA - qtyB);
console.log(arr.flat());