If I have 2 strings and I want to return a value based on their alphabetical order

JavaScript
#1

Given two Strings, return 1 if the first is higher in alphabetical order than
the second, return -1 if the second is higher in alphabetical order than the
first, and return 0 if they’re equal

This is my attempt: it must be within the function sortAscending…

function sortAscending(stringOne, stringTwo) {
var alphabet = [a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z];
for (var i = 0; i<= alphabet.length-1; i++){
    if (stringOne[0] > stringTwo[0]){
        return 1;
} else if (stringOne[0] < stringTwo[0]){
        return -1;
} else if (stringOne[0] === stringTwo[0]){
        return 0;
}

Let me know if anyone has any insight!

#2
  1. You have an alphabet array, but you never use it. Do you need this array?
  2. Why do you have a for loop if you only ever check the first letter of each string?
#3

@ArielLeslie I know I think I’m making it too confusing. I’m not sure how to compare the letters to determine alphabetical heirarchy

#4

Do you only need to compare the first letter of each string? Does case matter?

#5

Yes, the first letter and I think I need to make it case insensitive.

#6

If you only need to check the first letters, then you don’t need a loop. Go ahead and get rid of those. If you need to be case-insensitive, then you will want to make sure that you aren’t comparing an uppercase with a lowercase. Think about how you can ensure that. If you like, you can use your alphabet array and check a letter’s index. However, you can actually compare characters directly. They are compared by their ASCII value.

Go ahead and Google around some, tinker a bit, and let me know if you get stuck again.

1 Like
#7

What about the case where the two strings are “too” and “two”. If you only look at the first letter, how do you decide what value to return?

#8

Yes, good point. I definitely need to account for that. I’ve been doing some googling, but I’m still stumped.

#9

Wait, scratch that. I’m going to see if I can make the alphabet array into an object instead so that each letter is assigned a numeric value.

#10

would this be a callback for the Array.prototype.sort() method?

you can compare the two strings to each other directly, and it will work, or if you wante case insensitivness you need to do a little something previous than that

#11

i can compare the strings directly, but i need to reference the alphabet to determine their order. this is where i’m stuck

#12

is the referencing the alphabet an instruction for something, or is that the way you want to solve it?

#13

No, not necessarily. I’m just a beginner, so I’m trying to use the tools I have learned so far to solve the problem.

#14

try on your own: console.log("a" > "b"); console.log("aa" > "ab");, you can compare directly
if you still want to use the alphabet array, try with indexOf()

#15