MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-ACTIONSCRIPT LANGUAGE Reference page 118

By default,
Array
•
Sorting is case-sensitive (Z precedes a).
•
Sorting is ascending (a precedes b).
•
The array is modified to reflect the sort order; multiple elements that have identical sort fields
are placed consecutively in the sorted array in no particular order.
•
Numeric fields are sorted as if they were strings, so 100 precedes 99, because "1" is a lower
string value than "9".
You can use the
forms of the
option
an array with only one field), or if you want to specify a sort order that the
doesn't support, use Array.sort().
To pass multiple flags in numeric format, separate them with the bitwise OR (
the values of the flags together. The following code shows three ways to specify a numeric
descending sort:
my_array.sortOn(someFieldName, 2 | 16);
my_array.sortOn(someFieldName, 18);
my_array.sortOn(someFieldName, Array.DESCENDING | Array.NUMERIC);
Code hinting (see "Using code hints" in Using ActionScript in Flash) is enabled if you use the
string form of the flag (for example,
Consider the following array:
var my_array:Array = new Array();
my_array.push({password: "Bob", age:29});
my_array.push({password: "abcd", age:3});
my_array.push({password: "barb", age:35});
my_array.push({password: "catchy", age:4});
Performing a default sort on the password field produces the following results:
my_array.sortOn("password");
// Bob
// abcd
// barb
// catchy
Performing a case-insensitive sort on the password field produces the following results:
my_array.sortOn("password", Array.CASEINSENSITIVE);
// abcd
// barb
// Bob
// catchy
Performing a case-insensitive, descending sort on the password field produces the following
results:
my_array.sortOn("password", 1|2);
// catchy
// Bob
118 Chapter 2: ActionScript Language Reference
. works as described in the following list:
sortOn()
flags to override these defaults. The following examples use different
option
flag for illustration purposes. If you want to sort a simple array (for example,
DESCENDING
) rather than the numeric form (2).
parameter
options
) operator or add
|