Regex help sorting pair

JavaScript
1

Hi All

I have a long list of Json entries in the usual formatting key:value, - for example :

“UTB”: “Cancel”,
“ATB”:“Delete”,

and so on - I need to sort them out alphabetically by value - like in the example above are ok (c, d) even if the keys are not.

Is there a regex that can help me with this job? I am going insane trying to do it manually.

thanks

2

You should consider an object to not have an order to it’s properties, because it’s undefined in the spec(even though most browsers do lead you to believe there’s a reliable order to it).

Change it to an array(which has an order defined by numeric index), like


var arr = [
  ["UTB", "Cancel"],
  ["ATB", "Delete"]
];

Then you can write yourself a custom sorting function.


arr.sort(function(a, b){
    if (b[1] == a[1]) {
        return 0;
    }
    return b[1] < a[1] ? -1 : 1;
});
3

Thanks for the reply crmalibu - will test it now - unfortunately it’s a txt file I got which is part of a bigger project, a plain text file that populates a dropdown, in fact the values will become the select options text and the key the options values…if that makes sense.

So I need sorting the select options text to be in alphabetical order.

g

4

Oh, so it’s not really json, you just decided to convert the text file into a json object? Well that makes it easy. Just convert it to an array format like I posted.

5

it is already a json file and needs to be the same after the changes, with “keys”:“values” but the values are unordered now and need to be ordered in alphabetical order, I am still stuck :frowning: - got so many of these to go through.

here how it starts but the list of controllers is massive

“controllers”:{
“UTB”: “Cancel”,
“ATB”:“Delete”,

6

convert to array > sort > convert back to desired format. When you convert back, the order in which you define each property will be the “order” that browsers use.

7

I have worked it out… the solution was simpler that what I thought.

I swap the “key”:“values” position with a simple regex, so it becomes “values”:“key” , use the text editor to order the long list alphabetically and then run the regex again to put things back to “key”:“values”…phew at last, many thanks for your input crmalibu