How to sort an array in Ruby to a particular order?

Question

I want to sort an array in particular order given in another array.

EX: consider an array

a=["one", "two", "three"]
b=["two", "one", "three"]

Now I want to sort array 'a' in the order of 'b', i.e

a.each do |t|
  # It should be in the order of 'b'
  puts t
end

So the output should be

two
one 
three 

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Array#sort_by is what you're after.

a.sort_by do |element|
  b.index(element)
end

More scalable version in response to comment:

a=["one", "two", "three"]
b=["two", "one", "three"]

lookup = {}
b.each_with_index do |item, index|
  lookup[item] = index
end

a.sort_by do |item|
  lookup.fetch(item)
end