[Feature]: jest-diff should allow configuring sorting of object keys

[vjpr]

🚀 Feature Proposal

Allow configuring the object key sorting for jest-diff. At present it sorts alphabetically. It should allow using the existing sorting, or providing a function to sort before visual diff is generated.

Motivation

I am trying to diff two package.json files, and it keys are being sorted alphabetically when displaying the diff. This makes it hard to eyeball, because keys are not where you think they will be.

Example

No response

Pitch

There is no way around it with the way jest-diff is designed.

[SimenB]

PR welcome!

[D-Andreev]

Hi,

From what I see the sorting is happening here -> https://github.com/facebook/jest/blob/main/packages/pretty-format/src/collections.ts#L12.
I'm just wondering why do the object properties need to be sorted at all, don't you always want them in the same order as they're passed?
Can't the sorting be removed altogether, what would be a use case where you want a specific sorting?

[SimenB]

I believe we've always sorted there. The reason is I assume because it's easier to read objects that are sorted alphabetically, so it seems natural something which prints a "pretty" version of an object would do so

[D-Andreev]

That makes sense @SimenB. I'm not aware of the other uses of pretty-format, besides being used from jest-diff.

So the approach for implementing this feature would be to add an option in jest-diff for a custom sorting function (which will be the default sort if one is not passed) and passing it to pretty-format so the keys can be sorted. Does this sound good? Can I open a PR for this?

[SimenB]

Yeah, that seems like a reasonable approach! PR very much welcome 🙂

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