How does Javascript's sort() work?

Question

How does the following code sort this array to be in numerical order?

var array=[25, 8, 7, 41]

array.sort(function(a,b){
  return a - b
})

Answer 1

The JavaScript interpreter has some kind of sort algorithm implementation built into it. It calls the comparison function some number of times during the sorting operation. The number of times the comparison function gets called depends on the particular algorithm, the data to be sorted, and the order it is in prior to the sort.

Some sort algorithms perform poorly on already-sorted lists because it causes them to make far more comparisons than in the typical case. Others cope well with pre-sorted lists, but have other cases where they can be "tricked" into performing poorly.

There are many sorting algorithms in common use because no single algorithm is perfect for all purposes. The two most often used for generic sorting are Quicksort and merge sort. Quicksort is often the faster of the two, but merge sort has some nice properties that can make it a better overall choice. Merge sort is stable, while Quicksort is not. Both algorithms are parallelizable, but the way merge sort works makes a parallel implementation more efficient, all else being equal.

Your particular JavaScript interpreter may use one of those algorithms or something else entirely. The ECMAScript standard does not specify which algorithm a conforming implementation must use. It even explicitly disavows the need for stability.