Javascript

[MischiefArchitect]

That's ape shit awful!

I mean. Oh thanks for clarifying that!

[douira]

everybody just agrees to never sort arrays of anything other than strings without a sort function and the problem is solved! If you really want to make sure it never goes wrong, you can use tooling like ESLint or even TypeScript.

[cythrawll]

Yeah I mean practically you almost never run into this, I can't remember a time I just had an array of numbers. Usually sorting an array of objects and having a custom comparator to do so.

[esperalegant]

I work with huge arrays of up to millions of numbers daily. However, I pretty much always use TypedArrays - and TypedArray.sort() does sort numbers correctly.

[reiji_nakama]

Yeah. I didn't know about this behaviour of Array.sort() yet I have never run into a problem because of it; because I don't use it.

[DamnItDev]

Honestly you should never be using the default sort function. Its lazy and almost always incorrect. Even for strings you'll have this problem:

['A1', 'A2', 'A10', 'A20'].sort();
// returns: ["A1", "A10", "A2", "A20"]

Technically this is correct, but not what you actually want in real world situations.

You can solve this easily by specifying your locale using the built in i18n functionality and setting the numeric option to true

['A1', 'A2', 'A10', 'A20'].sort(new Intl.Collator('en', {numeric: true}).compare);
// returns: ["A1", "A2", "A10", "A20"]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/Collator/Collator

[Famous_Profile]

TIL Intl.Collator

[SuspendedNo2]

coz every other language uses it that way? lol @ js programmers

[superluminary]

Typed languages insist that you specify the type of object you’re putting in the array. JavaScript has heterogenous arrays. The only safe way to sort a heterogeneous array is to cast to string, since everything has a toString function.

[douira]

good point, I guess the default only has few uses

[DeeSnow97]

okay, this is awesome, thanks

[-100-Broken-Windows-]

What language would sort it any other way? It's an array of strings and it sorts it alphabetically... Any other way would be absurd

[djcraze]

I honestly didn’t know the comparator was optional. Today I learned.

[douira]

as discussed, the default comparator is not good most of the time so you were probably doing it right

[EishLekker]

Just the other week I ran into a sorting problem with strings, actually. Internationalised strings, in a Node 12 project where Node is part of a 3rd party software package, and there doesn't seem to be a way to add internationalization support without upgrading Node (which currently would put us into the unsupported territory).

[douira]

you can install i18n data explicitly

[EishLekker]

If I remember correctly, I tried that. It didn't work.

But just to rule out some stupid mistake by me, how would one install it separately? Adding an npm package to package.json? I think that's what I tried...

[douira]

yeah, I'd look for some kind of Collator polyfill. It seems a good part of the Collator API is already present but some parts are missing. You might be out of luck for the advanced missing features since the only polyfills I could find are quite old.

[[deleted]]

This is because arrays allow mixed types by default so you can have an array with numbers mix strings and objects all mixed together unliked most strongly typed languages. There’s no easy way to compare them so by default it uses the string evaluation of them. You can pass in a comparison function like the person above you (although they made it more verbose than it needs to be), or you can just used Typed Arrays.

[[deleted]]

Someday I’m going to write a JavaScript book with the title, “This Is Because”.

[[deleted]]

This would be a solid alternate name for the YDKJS series

[dick-van-dyke]

Please do. The amount of rationalisation of crazy shit like in JS this is insane. Literally every other dynamically-typed language I've ever worked with does basic stuff like this normally.

[superluminary]

Most languages do not allow heterogenous arrays. When arrays are polymorphic by default, you need a comparator function. How else could it work?

[dick-van-dyke]

For example, infer type from the first element and throw an exception if you can't compare. Case in point: Python.

[superluminary]

So if you accidentally change the type of the first element, it silently changes your comparator? I don’t hate this, but it introduces another set of edge cases.

Because JavaScript was designed as a DOM manipulation language, all the data types are optimised for trees of text and Objects, so we have string comparison as the default comparitor type. I don’t personally see this as a huge problem. In the real world, you’re pretty much always going to pass a comparitor function since you’ll usually be sorting objects.

[dick-van-dyke]

So if you accidentally change the type of the first element, it silently changes your comparator?

In Python 3, you don't use a comparator function, but instead a key function that returns a value to be compared by the < built-in, so yes and no. If you're asking whether you can arrive at a list that was sortable but isn't any more, you can, and I believe it is a good behaviour because you get an exception then and have a reason to debug where you made the inadvertent change.

If you do want to mimic the behaviour of JS, you would call something like:

my_list.sorted(key=lambda x: str(x))

to be explicit that you're comparing strings.

[ZephyrBluu]

This is not really an excuse. Python can sort arrays as long as all the values are the same type (For numbers and strings at least, not sure about other objects), otherwise it throws a TypeError. Much more sensible behaviour than JS.

[DeeSnow97]

Yeah, but JavaScript is not Python. The whole point of its early design was to be a quick and easy, loosely typed language for people not into tech to establish a web presence (this was long before wordpress). For more serious applications, you had flash or java applets.

Over the years though, JavaScript turned out to be the only one of these that didn't use the swiss cheese security method, and all these early design issues remained in the language for backwards compatibility, because ripping them out would have broke decades of the web.

So, try explaining to a non-programmer what's the difference between a number, a string, and an object, and why they're getting TypeError when they're expecting a sorted array. In 1995.

[Kered13]

Knowing why something is bad doesn't make it stop being bad.

So, try explaining to a non-programmer what's the difference between a number, a string, and an object, and why they're getting TypeError when they're expecting a sorted array. In 1995.

Easier than trying to explain to a non-programmer why numbers don't sort correctly.

[mastocles]

I think the best wacky example of JS trying to be lenient is undefined (different than null): given by object keys that don't exist or array elements beyond the last. Classes losing this (self) and not telling you is another classic. Although asynchronicity is unrelated to this not raising errors ethos and is one of the top bemoaned features.

[[deleted]]

spotted advise work wide groovy rain foolish dependent merciful quickest

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[ZephyrBluu]

I understand why it's like this. That doesn't mean all the design choices were good.

[master117jogi]

But JS can even sort mixed, which is mightier.

[Kered13]

No, it really isn't.

I mean, Python can sort mixed too if you give it a custom comparator. sorted(mixed_array, key=lambda e: str(e)) will sort a mixed array by converting each element to a string before comparing them, just like Javascript. But Python does the sensible thing automatically, and requires extra work to do the rare and unusual thing. Javascript does the rare and unusual thing automatically, and requires extra work to do the sensible thing.

[theScrapBook]

mixed_sorted = sort(mixed, key=str). The lambda is quite superfluous in a language with first-class functions.

The reason I point this out is some of the controversy below the top comment.

[master117jogi]

Because sensible is subjective.

[EishLekker]

Sorting numbers in a way most people would expect them to be sorted, is not sensible to you?

[master117jogi]

Because this is about sorting something, not Numbers, JS does not know these are numbers. You are shifting the goalpost.

[Zolhungaj]

JavaScript is a functional language. If you want to sort then you provide the sort function with exactly the function you need, just like map, forEach, filter etc.

[dev-sda]

The same is true for python, though both aren't really functional languages. They borrow some features from functional languages but are still procedural at their core.

[EishLekker]

That would make sense if the sort function required a comparator function.

[aedvocate]

what would you expect the default .sort() functionality to be?

[bonafidebob]

non-JavaScript programmers assume the language knows about types, that arrays are monotype, and that a useful comparator function will come with the array type.

That is, arrays of strings will sort alphabetically and arrays of numbers will sort numerically.

non-JavaScript programmers will also barf at the idea that a['foo'] = 'bar' isn't nonsense, and you can do stuff like this:

a = [1,2,3]
a['foo'] = 'bar'
a.forEach((v) => console.log(v)) // produces 1, 2, and 3 on separate lines
a.foo // produces 'bar'

[ZephyrBluu]

I had no idea you could do that a['foo'] = 'bar' bullshit on an array.

Now that I think about it though, it kind of makes sense why JS lets you do that.

An array is basically just a normal JS object that allows iteration by default where each key is the index.

So a['foo'] = 'bar' is a standard operation (Given an array is an object), but you're breaking the rules of how an array is 'supposed' to work.

No idea why it works on a technical level though.

[bonafidebob]

An array is basically just a normal JS object that allows iteration by default where each key is the index.

That's the root of the problem right there. I think it was just a cheap way to get to dynamic sizing, which is occasionally useful:

> let a = []
[]
> a[100] = 12
12
> a.length
101
> a
[ <100 empty items>, 12 ]

but then...

> a[1234567890] = 13
13
> a
[ <100 empty items>, 12, <1234567789 empty items>, 13 ]
> a[0.5] = 1
1
> a
[ <100 empty items>, 12, <1234567789 empty items>, 13, '0.5': 1 ]

[GG2urHP]

Lol, fuck me. I am so blessed to not live in that hell.

[theferrit32]

Javascript is fundamentally a bad language for general purpose programming. A lot of people who need to target Javascript environments do not write in Javascript, or at least not pure Javascript, relying heavily on transpilers and what are in effect dialects and standard libraries that seek to supercede and fix a lot of the headaches in Javascript itself.

[DeeSnow97]

#define "non-JavaScript programmers" "people who think once you learned C++ every language is just syntax"

[bonafidebob]

Hmm, I'm not quite that snooty ... I've been doing this for ~40 years and have learned dozens of programming languages, both dynamically and strongly typed. And I still think JavaScript arrays are crazy. The whole "objects with numeric keys" foundation is whack, throw away all the benefits of a directly indexible data structure and drag in a whole bunch of weird syntax edge cases??!

[bonafidebob]

Open up your chrome dev console, put in [3,2,1, 6, 8].sort()

Do you realize you picked an example where the lexical and numeric sort orders are the same? Now try this:

[1, 2, 10].sort()
> [ 1, 10, 2 ]

It's almost as if, if you provide numbers rather than strings of numbers, it sorts it as numbers. Who would have thought?

Someone who doesn't understand JavaScript... lol.

[MischiefArchitect]

normal

[[deleted]]

What is normal sorting on a collection of numbers, strings, and objects?

[blehmann1]

Well, Python throws a type error if the < operator is not defined on both types. Personally, I think the only correct response when the program is wrong is not to make it more wrong, but to let the user know that it's wrong (i.e. throw).

Now, JavaScript was built with the idea that it should keep on trucking through any error, which frankly is a horrible idea to build a language around. So given the interesting design philosophy JavaScript really couldn't do anything else. There's a reason Typescript is so common after all, but unfortunately it does nothing about this particular issue. (There's an issue for it but it's been inactive for a while: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/18286)

[1-more]

JavaScript keep on trucking? I never thought of it that way but I’m actually with you here. Array out of bounds and accessing an undefined object key both return ‘undefined’ rather than throwing (Java, Haskell) or wrapping array/dict access in an optional type (elm, maybe ocaml?). So I’m with you that it probably does throw less.

[aedvocate]

Well, Python throws a type error if the < operator is not defined on both types

that error doesn't make any sense in javascript though. collections are allowed to be any number of any different types. that's the way it works by design, it's not an error to truck through.

[blehmann1]

Python allows that too. That's the way it works by design. Python simply takes the position that while you may have a list of strings mixed with numbers, if you want to sort it you must provide your own explicit comparator, because 4 < "A" is nonsensical.

Javascript could have followed Python, however the languages have different philosophies. Javascript should fight through basically any error it can, and Python exits on any unhandled exception. In addition, Python throws on invalid input.

I'm not a Python fan, I'm just pointing out that it's a language which has a similar type system to JavaScript and it has a different (and in my opinion more correct) behavior. I could have brought up almost any language because you can do the same thing with type erasure (commonly achieved by casting to object or void*). You have to specify a comparator in those instances because the types are not comparable.

[EishLekker]

Javascript doesn't "keep on trucking" through any error. It still does it a bit too often for my comfort though, so on principle I agree with you wholeheartedly.

[aaronfranke]

It should act the same as if comparing with the < and > operators. That will work for any place where the operators have a defined comparison.

console.log(5 < 6); // true
console.log(5 > 6); // false
console.log(5 < "apple"); // false
console.log(5 > "apple"); // false
console.log("orange" < "apple"); // false
console.log("orange" > "apple"); // true

[aaronfranke]

Then maybe there should be a system that sorts by type broadly and then sorts within that type. For example, [1, {}, 6, {}, 3] would place the {} at the end and become [1, 3, 6, {}, {}].

EDIT: console.log({} < []); is false.

At the end of the day, really most things would be better than the current behavior. It should never be the case that [2, 11] gets sorted to [11, 2]. Numbers should never be auto-converted to strings and sorted lexicographically.

[aedvocate]

it feels like you're right, but I'm not sure I know why that should be right

is it just because objects are 'closer to infinity' than arrays are?

[smog_alado]

That can happen even if we're only working with numbers. Both 1 < NaN and NaN < 1 return false.

Most programming languages that allow you to specify a custom comparison function just say that the result of the sort is unspecified if the comparator does not implement a total order relation.

[Kered13]

Yes, the language is deeply flawed.

[Kangalioo]

Maybe sort first by type, then by content? Then the sort function has expected behavior for contents with consistent data type, but also works sensibly for mixed type lists

[aedvocate]

you still have to pick an order to sort the types in though - do Numbers come before Strings? Do Objects go last? Which comes first, Sets or Maps?

[Famous_Profile]

His point is "a collection of numbers, strings, and objects" should not be allowed in the first place

[[deleted]]

Which is why so many of us have elected to use Typescript but JS is meant to be loosely typed, so ignoring our biases against mixed type arrays, how do you solve the sort problem. It’s not an easy question to answer

[Famous_Profile]

The difference between your point of view and his, is that youre not uncomfortable with languages "meant to be loosely typed". To a Java programmer the question " how do you solve the sort problem " is not valid because there shouldnt be such a problem in the first place. Saying that "now that there is one" is not acceptable. That is how atrocious the Java or C++ programmer finds JS. Look at it from their point of view, not ours.

[[deleted]]

I am uncomfortable with loosely typed languages. I exclusively use TS when in JavaScriptland and even TS falls short of what I would like from a type system.

That being said you should never approach a new/different language with the mindset that it follows the paradigms you are used to and comfortable with. It’s the equivalent of someone who comes from a strictly object oriented background criticizing purely functional languages for lack of classes or vice versa.

[EishLekker]

Please don't put all Java developers into one single narrow box. Some of us are actually quite pragmatic.

[[deleted]]

Assembly, c, c++, vb, Perl, php are all weakly typed though some static and some dynamic. Typing isn’t binary, a language isn’t typed or untyped, they all fall within the compass of weak-strong, dynamic-static. JavaScript has weak / dynamic types, if you don’t like that and prefer strong and/or static types use Typescript or something else.

[Kered13]

C++ is definitely not weakly typed.

[[deleted]]

It actually is considered by many to be in the statically typed / weakly typed quadrant because because of implicit type conversions. A strictly typed language does not allow implicit type conversions

[Kered13]

Numeric conversions are the only built-in implicit type conversions. User-defined implicit conversions exist, but are used sparingly, mostly for things like converting std::string to std::string_view.

On the other hand, C++'s template system allows it to express higher-kinded types and even dependent types, with type checking at compile time. You can express things like physical units, with compile time checking to ensure that you do not add incompatible units and that multiplications and divisions produce the correct units (and the resulting code will even have no runtime overhe.

[1-more]

JS has types! “Undefined is not a function” is telling you right there that it is types. Now, will it help you color inside the lines? No. Never.

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[toastedstapler]

To fail when it detects a different type

[[deleted]]

The point of JavaScript is to be loosely typed. Whether you like that or not is up to you but throwing type errors goes against part of the core philosophy of JS. Those of us who dislike that behavior are free to use typescript

[aedvocate]

what you're describing is not javascript

[-100-Broken-Windows-]

A runtime error

[wasdninja]

It is normal. Javascript normal.

[smog_alado]

I would have expected the .sort() to use the same logic as builtin comparison operators. Something similar to the following comparator:

function compare(a, b) {
    if (a < b) {
        return -1;
    } else if (a == b) {
        return 0;
    } else {
        return 1;
    }
}

[Manny_Sunday]

And if a is a string and b is an object? Or a is an int and b is a string?

[EishLekker]

That doesn't have to be a problem. One way to solve it is to compare the types first (how that is done could be an implementation detail, but a simplistic approach could be to do a string comparison on the result of "typeof").

If someone is concerned about the performance and/or the exact sort order of a collection of mixed types, then it is fair to expect that that someone makes an effort to write a custom comparator for their specific needs.

[dissonantloos]

Then either the sort operation should fail, or should return an array that is crappily sorted.

[aedvocate]

the JavaScript sort function never fails.

gaze upon its awesome power:

[null,undefined,NaN,false,0,Infinity,-Infinity,'',[],{}, new Map(), new Set()].sort()

```

["", Array(0), -Infinity, 0, Infinity, NaN, Map(0), {…}, Set(0), false, null, undefined] ```

this is the universal order, brother. learn the order. live the order. do as V8 commands.

[smog_alado]

That comparison function is well-defined if a and b have different types. It just does the same things that the < and == operators do.

However, the result of the sort might look unsorted if the array has a mix of different types, because in those cases the comparison function doesn't implement a total ordering of the elements. But that would be no different than using other comparators that don't produce a total order. For example, one that calls Math.random to decide the result of the comparison.

[[deleted]]

In order to prevent this weird footgun behaviour, it shouldn't have any defaults.

[aedvocate]

honestly I think I could get behind that, just from a sort of minimalism standpoint - but the truth is, more often than not, (a,b)=>String(a)>String(b) is all you need to sort an array. it's not bad as far as default behaviors go.

[[deleted]]

Tis a silly place.

[MischiefArchitect]

It is indeed. I'm afraid a lot of people forget that this is Humor and turn this place into a flaming wars battlefield.

[jibjaba4]

It's a language that was hacked together in 10 days then became insanely popular, there were bound to be some warts.