Helpful functionality for sorting and comparing.
gem install sorting
Sort a list of Person objects
# Convenient
require 'sorting/convenience'
people.sort_by { |person| [asc(person.first_name), asc(person.last_name), desc(person.age)] }
# Or without patching Kernel
require 'sorting'
people.sort_by { |person|
[Sorting.asc(person.first_name), Sorting.asc(person.last_name), Sorting.desc(person.age)]
}
# Care about expensive comparison values which may not always be needed
# assume item.expensive_value takes a lot of time to compute, but since it's the second value,
# it might only be needed in a small number of cases.
require 'sorting/convenience'
items.sort_by { |item|
[asc(item.cheap_value), asc(:nils_last) { item.expensive_value }]
}
# Care about nil values in your data
require 'sorting/convenience'
people.sort_by { |person|
[asc(person.first_name, :nils_first), asc(person.first_name, :nils_last)]
}
# Only care about nil values in your data
[5,3,nil,9].sort_by { |x| x || Sorting::Bigger } # Sorting::Smaller is available too
Take a look at {file:documentation/examples.rb} for more examples.
You can use this code under the {file:LICENSE.txt BSD-2-Clause License}, free of charge. If you need a different license, please ask the author.