Methods Part 2 lecture

The anonymous function inside the sort method (in this case, function(a,b) ) takes 2 parameters (a & b). Since you're performing this method on "my_array", it's going to automatically grab 2 values from the array to compare against each other.

The sorting happens at the return (a-b) line. There are 3 possible results to this statement:

• Less than 0: Sort "a" to be a lower index than "b"
• Zero: "a" and "b" should be considered equal, and no sorting performed.
• Greater than 0: Sort "b" to be a lower index than "a".

Quick example: var myarray=[18, 8, 7, 45] myarray.sort(function(a,b){return a - b})

The first time through, the sort function might compare 18 & 8. Since the resulting number of "a-b" (18-8) is a positive number, the return(a-b) statement will send back >0. When the sort function compares 7 & 45, though, it will return a negative number, so the statement will return <0.