How to keep Javascript array sorted, without sorting it

Question

I have a Node.js application where I have to very often do following things: - check if particular array already contains certain element - if element does exist, update it - if

Answer 1

If your array is already sorted and you want to insert an element, to keep it sorted you need to insert it at a specific place in the array. Luckily arrays have a method that can do that: Array.prototype.splice

So, once you get the index you need to insert at (you should get by a simple modification to your binary search), you can do:

myArr.splice(myIndex,0,myObj);
// myArr your sorted array
// myIndex the index of the first item larger than the one you want to insert
// myObj the item you want to insert

EDIT: The author of your binary search code has the same idea:

So if you wanted to insert a value and wanted to know where you should put it, you could run the function and use the returned number to splice the value into the array. Source