how to sort strings in javascript numerically

Question

I would like to sort an array of strings (in javascript) such that groups of digits within the strings are compared as integers not strings. I am not worried about signed or fl

Answer 1

Assuming what you want to do is just do a numeric sort by the digits in each array entry (ignoring the non-digits), you can use this:

function sortByDigits(array) {
    var re = /\D/g;

    array.sort(function(a, b) {
        return(parseInt(a.replace(re, ""), 10) - parseInt(b.replace(re, ""), 10));
    });
    return(array);
}

It uses a custom sort function that removes the digits and converts to a number each time it's asked to do a comparison. You can see it work here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/t87m2/.

If this isn't what you want, then please clarify as your question is not very clear on how the sort should actually work.