Mastering Ruby Sort Methods

Sorting is a fundamental operation in programming, and Ruby provides a variety of methods to help you sort arrays and other enumerable objects. In this article, we will explore some of the most commonly used sort methods in Ruby and how you can master them to efficiently organize your data.

1. The sort Method

The sort method is the most basic way to sort an array in Ruby. It returns a new array with the elements sorted in ascending order.


numbers = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5]
sorted_numbers = numbers.sort
puts sorted_numbers

This will output: [1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9]

2. The sort_by Method

The sort_by method allows you to specify a custom sorting criteria by passing a block that calculates a value to sort by.


fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry', 'date']
sorted_fruits = fruits.sort_by { |fruit| fruit.length }
puts sorted_fruits

This will output: ["date", "apple", "banana", "cherry"]

3. The sort! Method

The sort! method is similar to the sort method, but it sorts the array in place, modifying the original array instead of returning a new one.


numbers = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5]
numbers.sort!
puts numbers

This will output: [1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9]

4. The sort_by! Method

Similarly, the sort_by! method sorts the array in place based on a custom sorting criteria.


fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry', 'date']
fruits.sort_by! { |fruit| fruit.length }
puts fruits

This will output: ["date", "apple", "banana", "cherry"]

5. The reverse Method

The reverse method reverses the order of the elements in an array.


numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
reversed_numbers = numbers.reverse
puts reversed_numbers

This will output: [5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

6. The reverse! Method

The reverse! method reverses the order of the elements in an array in place.


numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
numbers.reverse!
puts numbers

This will output: [5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

7. The sort_by! Method

Lastly, the sort_by! method sorts the array in place based on a custom sorting criteria.


fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry', 'date']
fruits.sort_by! { |fruit| fruit.length }
puts fruits

This will output: ["date", "apple", "banana", "cherry"]

By mastering these sort methods in Ruby, you can efficiently organize and manipulate your data to suit your needs. Experiment with different sorting criteria and explore the various options available to you. Happy coding!