array-sort-asc-function.md

title	description	ms.reviewer	ms.topic	ms.date
array_sort_asc()	Learn how to use the array_sort_asc() function to sort arrays in ascending order.	slneimer	reference	09/21/2022

array_sort_asc()

Receives one or more arrays. Sorts the first array in ascending order. Orders the remaining arrays to match the reordered first array.

Syntax

array_sort_asc(array1[, ..., arrayN][, nulls_last])

If nulls_last isn't provided, a default value of true is used.

[!INCLUDE syntax-conventions-note]

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
array1...arrayN	dynamic	✔️	The array or list of arrays to sort.
nulls_last	bool		Determines whether nulls should be last.

Returns

Returns the same number of arrays as in the input, with the first array sorted in ascending order, and the remaining arrays ordered to match the reordered first array.

null is returned for every array that differs in length from the first one.

If an array contains elements of different types, it's sorted in the following order:

• Numeric, datetime, and timespan elements
• String elements
• Guid elements
• All other elements

Example 1 - Sorting two arrays

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Run the query

let array1 = dynamic([1,3,4,5,2]);
let array2 = dynamic(["a","b","c","d","e"]);
print array_sort_asc(array1,array2)

Output

array1_sorted	array2_sorted
[1,2,3,4,5]	["a","e","b","c","d"]

Note

The output column names are generated automatically, based on the arguments to the function. To assign different names to the output columns, use the following syntax: ... | extend (out1, out2) = array_sort_asc(array1,array2)

Example 2 - Sorting substrings

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Run the query

let Names = "John,Paul,George,Ringo";
let SortedNames = strcat_array(array_sort_asc(split(Names, ",")), ",");
print result = SortedNames

Output

result
George,John,Paul,Ringo

Example 3 - Combining summarize and array_sort_asc

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Run the query

datatable(command:string, command_time:datetime, user_id:string)
[
    'chmod',   datetime(2019-07-15),   "user1",
    'ls',      datetime(2019-07-02),   "user1",
    'dir',     datetime(2019-07-22),   "user1",
    'mkdir',   datetime(2019-07-14),   "user1",
    'rm',      datetime(2019-07-27),   "user1",
    'pwd',     datetime(2019-07-25),   "user1",
    'rm',      datetime(2019-07-23),   "user2",
    'pwd',     datetime(2019-07-25),   "user2",
]
| summarize timestamps = make_list(command_time), commands = make_list(command) by user_id
| project user_id, commands_in_chronological_order = array_sort_asc(timestamps, commands)[1]

Output

user_id	commands_in_chronological_order
user1	[ "ls", "mkdir", "chmod", "dir", "pwd", "rm" ]
user2	[ "rm", "pwd" ]

Note

If your data may contain null values, use make_list_with_nulls instead of make_list.

Example 4 - Controlling location of null values

By default, null values are put last in the sorted array. However, you can control it explicitly by adding a bool value as the last argument to array_sort_asc().

Example with default behavior:

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Run the query

print array_sort_asc(dynamic([null,"blue","yellow","green",null]))

Output

print_0
["blue","green","yellow",null,null]

Example with non-default behavior:

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Run the query

print array_sort_asc(dynamic([null,"blue","yellow","green",null]), false)

Output

print_0
[null,null,"blue","green","yellow"]

Related content

To sort the first array in descending order, use array_sort_desc().