What is stable?
The 'stable' npm package provides stable sorting algorithms. Stable sorting ensures that equal elements retain their relative order after sorting. This is important when sorting by multiple criteria, where the secondary sort should not disturb the order of the primary sort.
What are stable's main functionalities?
stable sorting
This feature allows you to sort an array of objects or values in a stable manner, meaning that the original order of equivalent elements is preserved. The code sample demonstrates sorting an array of objects by the 'age' property.
const stable = require('stable');
const arr = [{name: 'John', age: 45}, {name: 'Jane', age: 45}, {name: 'Joe', age: 30}];
const sortedByAge = stable(arr, (a, b) => a.age - b.age);
in-place stable sorting
This feature provides an in-place stable sort, which means the original array is sorted without creating a copy. The code sample demonstrates sorting an array of numbers in ascending order.
const stable = require('stable');
const arr = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9];
stable.inplace(arr, (a, b) => a - b);
Other packages similar to stable
lodash
Lodash is a utility library that includes a `sortBy` function, which can perform a stable sort when provided with iteratees. It is more feature-rich than 'stable' and includes a wide range of utility functions beyond sorting.
underscore
Underscore.js is another utility library similar to Lodash, offering a `sortBy` function for stable sorting. It is also a general-purpose toolkit with various functions for manipulating collections, arrays, and objects.
Stable
A stable array sort, because Array#sort()
is not guaranteed stable.
MIT licensed.
From npm
Install with:
npm install stable
Then use it in Node.js or some other CommonJS environment as:
const stable = require('stable')
From the browser
Include stable.js
or the minified version stable.min.js
in your page, then call stable()
.
Usage
The default sort is, as with Array#sort
, lexicographical:
stable(['foo', 'bar', 'baz'])
stable([10, 1, 5])
Unlike Array#sort
, the default sort is NOT in-place. To do an in-place
sort, use stable.inplace
, which otherwise works the same:
const arr = [10, 1, 5]
stable(arr) === arr
stable.inplace(arr) === arr
A comparator function can be specified:
const lexCmp = (a, b) => String(a).localeCompare(b)
stable(['foo', 'bar', 'baz'], lexCmp)
const greaterThan = (a, b) => a > b
stable([10, 1, 5], greaterThan)
License
Copyright (C) 2018 Angry Bytes and contributors.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.