Ahhh! Thank you John!
I was confused and thinking that sort was like an iterator, but it is
not, it is operating on the whole collection returned by the $(...)
search. And the pushStack makes sense now, so if I wanted the unsorted
collection later you could reach into the stack and recover it presumably.
Thank you for the enlightenment :)
-Steve
John Resig wrote:
> Sure.
>
> Let's start with this:
> [].sort.apply( this, arguments )
> 'this' contains the current jQuery object, 'arguments' contains an
> array of all the arguments passed in to the .sort() function.
>
> jQuery Is a pseudo-array (not a true array) so it doesn't support
> operations like .sort(), natively. To mimic this, we get the sort
> function from a regular array:
> [].sort
> and then call it within the context of our jQuery array using
> JavaScript's apply method
> [].sort.apply( this, ... )
> and pass in our arguments to it (which should be just a single
> function, which is exactly what an array's sort function takes).
>
> This whole mess returns a new array of DOM elements. Which brings us
> to the rest:
> return this.pushStack( ..., []);
> The pushStack function is part of jQuery, it allows it to keep a
> stateful watch over what you match (it allows you to do .find() and
> .end(), for example). In this case we want to make sure that .sort()
> is stateful, since it's modifying the contents of the jQuery object.
>
> The second argument to pushStack is normally the arguments array -
> this is so that you can do stuff like:
> .filter(".foo",function(){ ... })
> but in this case, we don't have a function to pass into .sort(), so we
> just provide an empty array.
>
> The result is a stateful way of sorting a set of DOM elements
> contained within a jQuery object. It can be used like this:
>
> $("div.items").sort(function(a,b){
> return a.innerHTML > b.innerHTML ? 1 : -1;
> }).remove().appendTo("#itemlist");
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> --John
>
> On 10/19/06, Stephen Woodbridge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Ok, I am just not worthy! <sigh>
>> Somebody please walk me through how this plugin works.
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>> John Resig wrote:
>>> Hi Erik -
>>>
>>> With your particular example, give this plugin a try:
>>>
>>> jQuery.fn.sort = function() {
>>> return this.pushStack( [].sort.apply( this, arguments ), []);
>>> };
>>>
>>> We've been talking about adding this for a little while now, so it may
>>> become official:
>>> http://jquery.com/dev/bugs/bug/255/
>>>
>>> Using that plugin you can use your exact snippet, above. Let me know
>>> if this helps.
>>>
>>> --John
>>>
>>>> I've been using jQuery for a month or so now and am really enjoying it!
>>>>
>>>> I haven't been able to figure out how to sort a collection of elements. I
>>>> have something like the following:
>>>>
>>>> <div class="entry"><span class="foo">foo1</span><span
>>>> class="bar">bar1</span></div
>>>> <div class="entry"><span class="foo">foo2</span><span
>>>> class="bar">bar2</span></div
>>>>
>>>> I would like to be able to do something like:
>>>>
>>>> $('.entry').sort(function(a, b) { return $('.foo', a).text()-$('.foo',
>>>> b).text(); }).appendTo('#sortedStuff');
>>>>
>>>> Or something like that. I know javascript has a sort function, but that's
>>>> for arrays, so I'm not sure how that will work with jQuery? Also, a google
>>>> search for 'jquery sort' (no quotes), brings up some stuff about sorting in
>>>> the jQuery code, but it appears old and I can't find anything about sorting
>>>> in the latest release.
>>>>
>>>> Lastly, jQarray.js seems like it would do what I want, but it appears that
>>>> site is gone (taking jXs with it, btw). It would be nice if plugins were
>>>> cached on the jQuery site. Anybody have jQarray/jXs?
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>>> http://jquery.com/discuss/
>>
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>
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