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Intl.Collator.prototype.compare()

The compare() method of Intl.Collator instances compares two strings according to the sort order of this collator object.

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Syntax

js
compare(string1, string2)

Parameters

string1, string2

The strings to compare against each other.

Return value

A number indicating how string1 and string2 compare to each other according to the sort order of this Intl.Collator object:

  • A negative value if string1 comes before string2;
  • A positive value if string1 comes after string2;
  • 0 if they are considered equal.

Examples

Using compare for array sort

Use the compare function for sorting arrays. Note that the function is bound to the collator from which it was obtained, so it can be passed directly to Array.prototype.sort().

js
const a = ["Offenbach", "Österreich", "Odenwald"];
const collator = new Intl.Collator("de-u-co-phonebk");
a.sort(collator.compare);
console.log(a.join(", ")); // "Odenwald, Österreich, Offenbach"

Use the compare function for finding matching strings in arrays:

js
const a = ["Congrès", "congres", "Assemblée", "poisson"];
const collator = new Intl.Collator("fr", {
  usage: "search",
  sensitivity: "base",
});
const s = "congres";
const matches = a.filter((v) => collator.compare(v, s) === 0);
console.log(matches.join(", ")); // "Congrès, congres"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile Server
Chrome Edge Firefox Opera Safari Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet WebView Android Deno Node.js
compare 24 12 29 15 10 25 56 14 10 1.5 4.4 1.8
0.12.0Before version 13.0.0, only the locale data for en-US is available by default. See the Collator() constructor for more details.

See also

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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/Collator/compare