UPDATE Feb 4, 2022 Yes, as commenter Matthias pointed out, you can let JavaScript implicitly make the conversion of boolean minus boolean to end number a number of -1, 0, or 1.
\nOriginal but edited blog post below...
\nImagine you have an array like this:
\n\nconst items = [\n { num: 'one', labels: [] },\n { num: 'two', labels: ['foo'] },\n { num: 'three', labels: ['bar'] },\n { num: 'four', labels: ['foo'] },\n { num: 'five', labels: [] },\n];\nWhat you want, is to sort them in a way that all those entries that have a label foo come first, but you don't want to \"disturb\" the existing order. Essentially you want this to be the end result:
{ num: 'two', labels: ['foo'] },\n{ num: 'four', labels: ['foo'] },\n\n{ num: 'one', labels: [] },\n{ num: 'three', labels: ['bar'] },\n{ num: 'five', labels: [] },\n\nHere's a way to do that:
\n\nitems.sort(\n (itemA, itemB) =>\n itemB.labels.includes('foo') - itemA.labels.includes('foo')\n);\nconsole.log(items);\nAnd the outcome is:
\n[\n { num: 'two', labels: [ 'foo' ] },\n { num: 'four', labels: [ 'foo' ] },\n { num: 'one', labels: [] },\n { num: 'three', labels: [ 'bar' ] },\n { num: 'five', labels: [] }\n]\n\nThe simple trick is to turn then test operation into a number (0 or 1) and you can do that with Number.
Boolean minus boolean is operator overloaded to become an integer. From the Node repl...
\n> true - false\n1\n> false - true\n-1\n> false - false\n0\n> true - true\n0", "pub_date": "2021-12-02T15:09:15.617Z", "open_graph_image": "/cache/bd/23/bd23a05915cee89697e25bcea6b167a4.png", "url": null, "summary": "", "categories": ["JavaScript"], "disallow_comments": false, "hide_comments": false, "previous_post": {"oid": "brotli-compression-quality-comparison-in-the-real-world", "title": "Brotli compression quality comparison in the real world", "pub_date": "2021-12-01T13:15:34.304Z", "categories": ["Node", "JavaScript"]}, "next_post": {"oid": "my-sites-now-nextjs", "title": "My site's now NextJS - And I (almost) regret it already", "pub_date": "2021-12-17T15:05:14.727Z", "categories": ["Django", "Node", "React", "JavaScript"]}, "related_by_category": [{"oid": "always-run-biome-migrate-after-upgrading-biome", "title": "Always run biome migrate after upgrading biome", "pub_date": "2025-08-16T16:08:34.161Z", "categories": ["JavaScript"]}, {"oid": "video-to-screenshots-app", "title": "Video to Screenshots app", "pub_date": "2025-06-21T22:43:46.320Z", "categories": ["JavaScript"]}, {"oid": "how-to-handle-success-and-failure-usequery-hook", "title": "How to handle success and failure in @tanstack/react-query useQuery hook", "pub_date": "2024-09-16T10:27:38.290Z", "categories": ["JavaScript"]}, {"oid": "ideal-pattern-react-router-with-tanstackreact-query", "title": "An ideal pattern to combine React Router with TanStack Query", "pub_date": "2024-11-18T16:20:15.909Z", "categories": ["JavaScript"]}], "related_by_keyword": [{"oid": "sort-case-insensitively-empty-strings-last-django", "title": "How to sort case insensitively with empty strings last in Django", "pub_date": "2022-04-03T19:34:51.665Z", "categories": ["Python", "Django", "PostgreSQL"]}, {"oid": "find-the-largest-node_modules-directories", "title": "Find the largest node_modules directories with bash", "pub_date": "2022-09-30T23:30:24.982Z", "categories": ["Linux", "Bash", "macOS"]}, {"oid": "how-to-count-the-most-common-lines-in-a-file", "title": "How to count the most common lines in a file", "pub_date": "2022-10-07T16:20:35.507Z", "categories": ["Linux", "Bash", "macOS"]}, {"oid": "in-python-you-sort-with-a-tuple", "title": "In Python you sort with a tuple", "pub_date": "2013-06-14T01:34:53Z", "categories": ["Python"]}]}, "comments": {"truncated": false, "count": 2, "total_pages": 1, "tree": [{"id": 35628, "oid": "c8a6cba", "add_date": "2022-02-03T07:14:57.311Z", "name": "Matthias", "comment": "Hi there!