how can I compare dates in array to find the earliest one?

Question

I have a variable called dateArray with dates in it for example

[\"09/09/2009\", \"16/07/2010\", \"29/01/2001\"]

and I want to find the earlies

Answer 1

Sometimes the most basic approach is the best:

var dates = ["09/09/2009", "16/07/2010", "29/01/2001"];
var min = dates[0];
for(var i = 1; i < dates.length; i++) {
  if (fDate(dates[i]) < fDate(min))
    min = dates[i];
}

alert(min);

// create a proper Date object from the string
function fDate(s) {
  var d = new Date();
  s = s.split('/');
  d.setFullYear(s[2]);
  d.setMonth(s[1]);
  d.setDate(s[0]);
  return d;
}

The code I wrote for you above converts each string into a Date object, and then finds the minimum (the earliest date) from them. No string hacks, just straightforward date comparison. It returns the original string from the array.