Sorting an Array of Objects (results out of order)

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Posted on by RedBI

I am trying to sort an array of objects, but the result seems incorrect.

The sort is performed as below:

The expression in the screenshot is:

sort(sort(first(body('Select')),'BoundingBoxleft'),'BoundingBoxtop')

The result looks like this:

The red arrow indicates how I think the sort 'should' work - the coordinate values should be sorted as:

[0.21,0.39]

[0.21,0.44]

[0.21,0.63]

Please help? I think this might be a weird float/rounding issue, but please forgive me if I've missed something obvious.

Additional context:

For reference, I'm trying to fix a broken 'AI builder' OCR output - it reads values from a PDF out of order. Instead of reading like a human would, it outputs a piece of text on e.g. "Line 2" of a document wedged between the values taken from "Line 1"

Example (not actual text from a document):

Line 1: "Sally jumped far,"
Line 2: "but Bill jumped farther"

Becomes:

Line 1: "Sally jumped jumped far farther",
Line 2: "but Bill"

The BoundingBox top/left values are essentially just [x,y] coordinates that describe positions of text in the document (I have redacted the associated text values from the array in the screenshot). I have rounded the float values (e.g. 0.2063754848 whatever) to 2 decimal places with the expression:

 float(formatNumber(<value>,'0.00'))

And then map them into an array of objects using a Select statement.

I then try to stash these in a variable, sorted as described above. Please let me know if you can help.

Categories:

Building flows

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RedBI 19 on at

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Resubmitted here https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Nested-sort-functions-on-array-of-objects-results-out-of-order/m-p/2292732 because automarked as spam. Apologies for the double posting.

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creativeopinion 10,502 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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@RedBI This is the expression I used. I put your array into a Compose action.

sort(sort(outputs('Compose'), 'BoundingBoxleft'), 'BoundingBoxtop')

This is the output result:

[ { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.21, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.3 }, { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.21, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.39 }, { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.21, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.44 }, { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.21, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.63 }, { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.22, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.3 }, { "BoundingBoxtop": 0.22, "BoundingBoxleft": 0.39 } ]

Hope this helps!

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RedBI 19 on at

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Thank you @creativeopinion , but I'm not sure why your sort() expression functions as expected and mine doesn't.

I think I ended up solving my issue though, in a roundabout way. Thanks to @lbendlin (again, sorry all for the double posted request)

I converted the [x,y] decimals into integer-strings (0.24 = '24') and then placed them in a composite key by concatenating them with a decimal point such that [x,y] becomes 'y.x'. Then converted that to a float and sorted by that number.

In other words, I turned the [x,y] coordinates [0.21,0.39] into 39.21. This let me sort as desired. I still don't understand why my nested sort didn't work but this was an effective workaround.

I used the expression:
float(concat(string(mul(float(formatNumber(item()['BoundingBox']['top'],'0.00')),100)),'.',string(mul(float(formatNumber(item()['BoundingBox']['left'],'0.00')),100))))

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