AaronGreenlee.com | Sort Array of Objects in ColdFusion

Yesterday, I did a quick search for “Sort an array of objects with ColdFusion” and returned some pretty poor results so I wanted to take a moment to contribute an example to the community. This post shows how to quickly sort an array of objects into a struct and array.

Setting up the Example: Example Object

/** I am an example object for a Blog Post. */
component
	name 		= 'Character'
	persistent	= true
{

	property
		name="CharacterID"
		fieldtype='id'
		generator='native'
		column='CHARACTER_ID';

	/** Who is our Video Game Character? */
	property
		name='Name'
		ormtype='string';

	/** What video game does this character exist in? */
	property
		name='VideoGame'
		ormtype='string'
		column='VIDEO_GAME';

	/** What is their score? This is just an example. */
	property
		name='Score'
		ormtype='int';

	/** Construct */
	public function init (struct memento)
	{
		// Here is a way to explicitly set properties
		if (structKeyExists(arguments, 'memento')) {
			setName(arguments.memento.name);
			setVideoGame(arguments.memento.videoGame);
			setScore(arguments.memento.score);
		}

		// This is a dynamic method. It does the same
		// exact work as above but the code wont need
		// to be maintained.
		if (structKeyExists(arguments, 'memento'))
			for (local.k in arguments.memento)
				evaluate("set#local.k#(arguments.memento[local.k])");

		return this;
	};

}

Setting up the Example: Example Data

<cfscript>
	examples = [
		 // My Video Game Handle
		 {name = 'Aaron Greenlee (CrazedFan)',videoGame ='Call Of Duty 4', score = 19856 }
		// One of my favorite games
		,{name = 'Gordon Freeman', videoGame ='Half-Life Series', score = 1980 }
		// COD/MW Rocks
		,{name = 'John "Soap" MacTavish', videoGame ='Modern Warfare Series', score = 154 }
		// Love to Mario!
		,{name = 'Mario', videoGame ='Super Mario Bors.', score = 192553 }
		// Back Back Forward
		,{name = 'Raden', videoGame ='Mortal Kombat', score = 1545 }
		// Valve Software is an amazing company. Mass respect.
		,{name = 'GLaDOS', videoGame ='PORTAL', score = 0 }
		// I never finish these games
		,{name = 'Link', videoGame ='Zelda', score = '0' }
	];
</cfscript>

Just some sample data so you don't have to have a database.

Setting up the Example: Populating Our Objects

<cfscript>
	// Populate some objects
	objects = [];
	n = arrayLen(examples);
	for(i=1; i<=n; i++)
		arrayAppend(objects, entityNew('Character').init(examples[i]) );
</cfscript>

The above snippet is not rocket science. We’re passing a struct of example data into our object’s constructor to populate this instance.

Step 1: Sorting Into Struct

<cfscript>
	// Hold all our sorts
	sort = {
		 sortedStruct = { byName = {}, byScore = {} }
		,sortedArrays = { byName = [], byScore = [] }
	};

	// Sort into structs.
	// We simply let CF do the hard work
	n = arrayLen(objects);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++) {
		// Each key in the struct is in the format of
		// {VALUE}.{UUID} This is important otherwise any objects
		// with the same value would be lost.
		sort.sortedStruct.byScore[ objects[i].getScore() & '.' & createUUID() ] = objects[i];
		sort.sortedStruct.byName[ objects[i].getName() & '.' & createUUID() ] = objects[i];
	}

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedStruct.byScore,label='Struct Sorted by Score');
	writeDump(var=sort.sortedStruct.byName,label='Struct Sorted by Name');
</cfscript>

As we loop over the object I am concatenating the value to sort with a UUID to ensure each key is unique. Otherwise, objects with duplicate values are lost.

The hard work is already done by ColdFusion as structs are sorted by default:

At this point, we have a sorted struct in ascending order. You can use this struct with some of ColdFusion's struct methods (like structSort) to do what you need.

Step 2 (optional): Sorting Into Array

With just a little more work we can return an array sorted to our requirements.

An Array of Objects Sorted by Name

<cfscript>
	// Sort the objects into an array by name.
	names = structKeyArray(sort.sortedStruct.byName);
	arraySort(names, 'text', 'asc');
	n = arrayLen(names);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++)
		arrayAppend(sort.sortedArrays.byName, sort.sortedStruct.byName[ names[i] ]);

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedArrays.byName,label='Array Sorted by Name');
</cfscript>

An Array of Objects Sorted by Score

<cfscript>
	// Similar work for sorting by score
	scores = structKeyArray(sort.sortedStruct.byScore);
	arraySort(scores, 'text', 'desc');
	n = arrayLen(scores);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++)
		arrayAppend(sort.sortedArrays.byScore, sort.sortedStruct.byScore[ scores[i] ]);

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedArrays.byScore,label='Array Sorted by Score');
</cfscript>

Sorted arrays of objects! Notice the score was sorted as text. The value being sorted is {SCORE}.{UUID} which is a string.

Hope this helps you!

The Entire Process in One Snippet

<cfscript>

	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// Prepare our example data
	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	examples = [
		 // My Video Game Handle
		 {name = 'Aaron Greenlee (CrazedFan)',videoGame ='Call Of Duty 4', score = 19856 }
		// One of my favorite games
		,{name = 'Gordon Freeman', videoGame ='Half-Life Series', score = 1980 }
		// COD/MW Rocks
		,{name = 'John "Soap" MacTavish', videoGame ='Modern Warfare Series', score = 154 }
		// Love to Mario!
		,{name = 'Mario', videoGame ='Super Mario Bors.', score = 192553 }
		// Back Back Forward
		,{name = 'Raden', videoGame ='Mortal Kombat', score = 1545 }
		// Valve Software is an amazing company. Mass respect.
		,{name = 'GLaDOS', videoGame ='PORTAL', score = 0 }
		// I never finish these games
		,{name = 'Link', videoGame ='Zelda', score = '0' }
	];

	// Populate some objects
	objects = [];
	n = arrayLen(examples);
	for(i=1; i<=n; i++)
		arrayAppend(objects, entityNew('Character').init(examples[i]) );

	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// Now we have our example data, let's do some sorting!
	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	// Hold all our sorts
	sort = {
		 sortedStruct = { byName = {}, byScore = {} }
		,sortedArrays = { byName = [], byScore = [] }
	};

	// Sort into structs.
	// We simply let CF do the hard work
	n = arrayLen(objects);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++) {
		// Each key in the struct is in the format of
		// {VALUE}.{UUID} This is important otherwise any objects
		// with the same value would be lost.
		sort.sortedStruct.byScore[ objects[i].getScore() & '.' & createUUID() ] = objects[i];
		sort.sortedStruct.byName[ objects[i].getName() & '.' & createUUID() ] = objects[i];
	}

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedStruct.byScore,label='Struct Sorted by Score');
	writeDump(var=sort.sortedStruct.byName,label='Struct Sorted by Name');

	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// You could be done. The structure created above is ready.
	// But, if you need an array, a little more work is required.
	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	// Sort the objects into an array by name.
	names = structKeyArray(sort.sortedStruct.byName);
	arraySort(names, 'text', 'asc');
	n = arrayLen(names);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++)
		arrayAppend(sort.sortedArrays.byName, sort.sortedStruct.byName[ names[i] ]);

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedArrays.byName,label='Array Sorted by Name');


	// Similar work for sorting by score
	scores = structKeyArray(sort.sortedStruct.byScore);
	arraySort(scores, 'text', 'desc');
	n = arrayLen(scores);
	for (i=1; i <= n; i++)
		arrayAppend(sort.sortedArrays.byScore, sort.sortedStruct.byScore[ scores[i] ]);

	writeDump(var=sort.sortedArrays.byScore,label='Array Sorted by Score');


</cfscript>