How to create a custom sort method in Ruby

Question

I want to specify a custom block method to sort an object array by evaluating two properties. However, after many searches, I didn\'t find to any example without the <=

Answer 1

This will give you ascending order for x then for y:

points.sort_by{ |p| [p.x, p.y] }

Answer 2

The best answer is provided by @AJcodez below:

points.sort_by{ |p| [p.x, p.y] }

The "correct" answer I originally provided, while it technically works, is not code I would recommend writing. I recall composing my response to fit the question's use of if/else rather than stopping to think or research whether Ruby had a more expressive, succinct way, which, of course, it does.

---

With a case statement:

ar.sort do |a, b|
  case
  when a.x < b.x
    -1
  when a.x > b.x
    1
  else
    a.y <=> b.y
  end
end 

With ternary:

ar.sort { |a,b| a.x < b.x ? -1 : (a.x > b.x ? 1 : (a.y <=> b.y)) }

Answer 3

This seems to work:

# Ascending
ar.sort! do |a,b|
  (a-b).abs() > 0 ? a-b : 0
end

# Descending
ar.sort! do |a,b|
  (a-b).abs() > 0 ? b-a : 0
end

There's no need for the spaceship operator ( <=> ) - it seems to be superfluous in Ruby (in terms of syntax efficiency), because Ruby considers 0 to be true, and for this usage specifically (above), you can just put the explicit 0 in the ternary operator.