Sorting: Sort array based on multiple conditions in Ruby

Question

I have a mulitdimensional array like so:

[
  [name, age, date, gender]
  [name, age, date, gender]
  [..]
]

I\'m wondering the best way to sort

Answer 1

As I understand it you want to order by age first, and then if more than one record has the same age, arrange that subset by name.

---

This works for me

people = [
      ["bob", 15, "male"], 
      ["alice", 25, "female"], 
      ["bob", 56, "male"], 
      ["dave", 45, "male"], 
      ["alice", 56, "female"], 
      ["adam", 15, "male"]
    ]

people.sort{|a,b| (a[1] <=> b[1]) == 0 ? (a[0] <=> b[0]) : (a[1] <=> b[1]) }

# The sorted array is

[["adam", 15, "male"], 
 ["bob", 15, "male"], 
 ["alice", 25, "female"], 
 ["dave", 45, "male"], 
 ["alice", 56, "female"], 
 ["bob", 56, "male"]]

---

What this is doing is comparing by age first, and if the age is the same (<=> returs 0) it comparing the name.