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instance method

Array#sort

array.sort → new_array

array.sort {|a, b| ... } → new_array

VALUE
rb_ary_sort(VALUE ary)
{
    ary = rb_ary_dup(ary);
    rb_ary_sort_bang(ary);
    return ary;
}

Returns a new Array whose elements are those from self, sorted.

With no block, compares elements using operator <=> (see Comparable):

Example

a = 'abcde'.split('').shuffle
a # => ["e", "b", "d", "a", "c"]
a1 = a.sort
a1 # => ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]

With a block, calls the block with each element pair; for each element pair a and b, the block should return an integer:

Negative when b is to follow a.
Zero when a and b are equivalent.
Positive when a is to follow b.

Example:

Example

a = 'abcde'.split('').shuffle
a # => ["e", "b", "d", "a", "c"]
a1 = a.sort {|a, b| a <=> b }
a1 # => ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]
a2 = a.sort {|a, b| b <=> a }
a2 # => ["e", "d", "c", "b", "a"]

When the block returns zero, the order for a and b is indeterminate, and may be unstable:

Example

a = 'abcde'.split('').shuffle
a # => ["e", "b", "d", "a", "c"]
a1 = a.sort {|a, b| 0 }
a1 # =>  ["c", "e", "b", "d", "a"]

Related: Enumerable#sort_by.

See also #sort! #slice! #slice #sort_by! also in 4.1 · 4.0 · 3.4 · 3.3 · 3.2 · 3.1

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