Paul Irish

Making the www great

Quick Internationalized Sort in Javascript

Let’s take a list of countries that was originally alphabetized in English, but is now translated to French.

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var arr = ["Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili",
"Chine", "Costa Rica ", "République Tchèque", "Danemark", "Équateur", "El Salvador ",
"Finlande", "France", "Allemagne", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande",
"Italie", "Japon", "Corée du Sud", "Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Pays-Bas", "Nouvelle-Zélande",
"Norvège", "Panama", "Pologne", "Portugal", "Russie", "Slovaquie", "Espagne",
"la Suède", "Suisse", "Turquie", "Royaume-Uni", "Uruguay", "États-Unis"]

You can see the incorrect sort order for Germany (“Allemagne”) and the US (“États-Unis”). Running the standard javascript Array.sort() will sort it according to the American English language:

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arr.sort();
/*==>
["Allemagne", "Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili", 
"Chine", "Corée du Sud", "Costa Rica ", "Danemark", "El Salvador ", "Espagne", "Finlande", 
"France", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande", "Italie", "Japon", 
"Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Norvège", "Nouvelle-Zélande", "Panama", "Pays-Bas", "Pologne", 
"Portugal", "Royaume-Uni", "Russie", "République Tchèque", "Slovaquie", "Suisse", "Turquie",
 "Uruguay", "la Suède", "Équateur", "États-Unis"] */

Note the misplacement of the last three entries. A real internationalized sort of this would be a huge motherbitch to implement, but here is a quick and hacky way to get your ducks in order:

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  arr.sort(function(a,b){

    function normalize(str){
       return str
               .toLowerCase()
               .replace(/è|é|ê|ë/,'e').replace(/ò|ó|ô|õ|ö/,'o').replace(/ì|í|î|ï/,'i')
               .replace(/à|á|â|ã|ä|å|æ/,'a').replace(/ù|ú|û|ü/,'u');
    }

    a = normalize(a);
    b = normalize(b);

    return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));
  });
/*==>
["Allemagne", "Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili", 
"Chine", "Corée du Sud", "Costa Rica ", "Danemark", "El Salvador ", "Équateur", "Espagne",
 "États-Unis", "Finlande", "France", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande", 
"Italie", "Japon", "la Suède", "Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Norvège", "Nouvelle-Zélande", 
"Panama", "Pays-Bas", "Pologne", "Portugal", "République Tchèque", "Royaume-Uni", 
"Russie", "Slovaquie", "Suisse", "Turquie", "Uruguay"] */

It’s not perfect (I bet that “la Suède” should actually be in the S’s), but it’ll get you a bit closer without too much effort.

2009.10.29: A much better method:
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  arr.sort(function(a, b) {
    if (typeof a === 'string' && typeof b === 'string') {
      return a.toLowerCase().localeCompare(b.toLowerCase());
    });

What Makes You Sustainably Happy?

i wonder about the personal fulfillment of:

  • doing what we think we should be doing
  • doing what we want to be doing
  • doing what we think makes us happy

because those three are certainly different..

How to Keep Friend Requests Out of Your Inbox

If you’re incredibly popular on the internet, like me, then I can hear you crying for help. :)

Friend requests littering your inbox can get annoying. They certainly don’t need your attention right now, so why not through them to a more passive information consumption area: RSS. That way you can process them en masse, when you’re ready to.

First, we use the filters in Gmail to identify all friend request emails.

  • Set up a new filter.
  • In the subject area put in this text:
    {“friend request” “is now following you” “newest contact” “friends on yelp” “added you as a” “has requested your trust” “wants to be your friend” “invited you to connect” “would like to be added”}
  • Click next, then select Skip the Inbox
  • Check Forward it to and in the box put in a unique-email-address @ mailbucket.org. (For example: paulsfriendrequests@mailbucket.org) This will be a public feed, so… yeah.
  • Click Create Filter

friendrequestfilter.PNG

Your newly created RSS feed will be at http://mailbucket.org/unique-email-address.xml.

This filter will catch all friend requests from: Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Spokeo, Twitter, Yelp, and Plaxo Pulse. (And should be pretty trivial to add new ones. :)