I have a couple of parallel arrays called names and sales. I have the user enter up to 100 salespeople (names, obviously) and their sales. I have no problem printing these to a table. The catch (for me, anyway) is that they need to be sorted in descending order according to sales. I have made a function called sort which is coded (poorly - as I am just beginning to learn JavaScript) as:

function sort(names, sales) {
    var i = 0;
    var j = 0;
    var temp = 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < sales.length - 1; i++) {
        var min = i;
        for (var j = i + 1; j < array.length; j++)
        if (sales[j] < (sales[min])) min = j;
        temp = sales[i];
        sales[i] = sales[min];
        sales[min] = temp;
        temp = names[i];
        names[i] = names[min];
        names[min] = temp;
    }
}

I am in need of some help here, obviously. Can anyone lend a hand to point out the (no doubt numerous) errors?

We have been instructed to write our own sort. Sales and names are input through two different functions (getName() and getSales()) using prompts.

I have a couple of parallel arrays called names and sales. I have the user enter up to 100 salespeople (names, obviously) and their sales. I have no problem printing these to a table. The catch (for me, anyway) is that they need to be sorted in descending order according to sales. I have made a function called sort which is coded (poorly - as I am just beginning to learn JavaScript) as:

function sort(names, sales) {
    var i = 0;
    var j = 0;
    var temp = 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < sales.length - 1; i++) {
        var min = i;
        for (var j = i + 1; j < array.length; j++)
        if (sales[j] < (sales[min])) min = j;
        temp = sales[i];
        sales[i] = sales[min];
        sales[min] = temp;
        temp = names[i];
        names[i] = names[min];
        names[min] = temp;
    }
}

I am in need of some help here, obviously. Can anyone lend a hand to point out the (no doubt numerous) errors?

We have been instructed to write our own sort. Sales and names are input through two different functions (getName() and getSales()) using prompts.

• javascript
• arrays

Share Improve this question Follow edited Mar 16, 2011 at 3:12 Yi Jiang 50.2k1616 gold badges139139 silver badges136136 bronze badges asked Mar 16, 2011 at 2:53 unitunit 41511 gold badge88 silver badges1717 bronze badges

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 5

First, why not use a single two-dimensional array, say, SalesArray, for example:

[ ['someName', 'someSale'], ['someName2', 'someSale2'], ]

Next, simply inspect SalesArray[i][1] while sorting.

As for sorting, try implementing bubblesort, especially if you're new to sorting algorithms.

Why not just store both the name and sales in a single object? Then everything is in one array.

// Declare array
var people = new Array();

// Somewhere in a loop to add people...
var person = {
    name: "jdmichal",
    sales: 1000
};
people.push(person);

// Now sort based on the sales property in each object.