# Why does numeric sort look wrong here?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-does-numeric-sort-look-wrong-here/679895>\
**Category:** web dev\
**Created:** [April 3, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-does-numeric-sort-look-wrong-here/679895 "2026-04-03T00:00:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HariSeldon](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/hariseldon/32/31261_2.png) [@HariSeldon](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/HariSeldon)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-does-numeric-sort-look-wrong-here/679895/1 "2026-04-03T00:00:08Z")

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Consider this snippet.

```javascript
console.log([10, 2, 5].sort());

```

Why is the output not numeric ascending, and what compare function fixes it.

Hari

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ellen1979](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/ellen1979/32/31260_2.png) [@Ellen1979](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Ellen1979)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 12:07am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-does-numeric-sort-look-wrong-here/679895/2 "2026-04-03T00:07:05Z")

</div>

`sort()` compares as strings by default, so `"10"` comes before `"2"`.

Ellen