---
title: String.prototype.localeCompare()
slug: Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/localeCompare
translation_of: Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/localeCompare
---
<div>{{JSRef}}</div>

<p>The <strong><code>localeCompare()</code></strong> 메서드는 기준 문자열과 비교했을 때 비교 대상 문자열이 정렬상 전에 오는지, 후에 오는지 혹은 같은 순서에 배치되는지를 알려주는 숫자를 리턴합니다.</p>

<p>The new <code>locales</code> and <code>options</code> arguments let applications specify the language whose sort order should be used and customize the behavior of the function. In older implementations, which ignore the <code>locales</code> and <code>options</code> arguments, the locale and sort order used are entirely implementation dependent.</p>

<h2 id="Syntax">Syntax</h2>

<pre class="syntaxbox"><code><var>referenceStr</var>.localeCompare(<var>compareString</var>[, <var>locales</var>[, <var>options</var>]])</code></pre>

<h3 id="Parameters">Parameters</h3>

<p>Check the <a href="#Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</a> section to see which browsers support the <code>locales</code> and <code>options</code> arguments, and the <a href="#Checking_for_support_for_locales_and_options_arguments">Checking for support for <code>locales</code> and <code>options</code> arguments</a> for feature detection.</p>

<dl>
 <dt><code>compareString</code></dt>
 <dd>The string against which the referring string is compared</dd>
</dl>

<div>{{page('/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Collator', 'Parameters')}}</div>

<h3 id="Return_value">Return value</h3>

<p>A <strong>negative</strong> number if the reference string occurs before the compare string; <strong>positive</strong> if the reference string occurs after the compare string; <strong>0</strong> if they are equivalent.</p>

<h2 id="Description">Description</h2>

<p>Returns an integer indicating whether the <strong>referenceStr</strong> comes before, after or is equivalent to the <strong>compareStr</strong>.</p>

<ul>
 <li>Negative when the <strong>referenceStr</strong> occurs before <strong>compareStr</strong></li>
 <li>Positive when the <strong>referenceStr</strong> occurs after <strong>compareStr</strong></li>
 <li>Returns 0 if they are equivalent</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>DO NOT rely on exact return values of -1 or 1. </strong>Negative and positive integer results vary between browsers (as well as between browser versions) because the W3C specification only mandates negative and positive values. Some browsers may return -2 or 2 or even some other negative or positive value.</p>

<h2 id="Examples">Examples</h2>

<h3 id="Using_localeCompare()">Using <code>localeCompare()</code></h3>

<pre class="brush: js">// The letter "a" is before "c" yielding a negative value
'a'.localeCompare('c'); // -2 or -1 (or some other negative value)

// Alphabetically the word "check" comes after "against" yielding a positive value
'check'.localeCompare('against'); // 2 or 1 (or some other positive value)

// "a" and "a" are equivalent yielding a neutral value of zero
'a'.localeCompare('a'); // 0
</pre>

<h3 id="Sort_an_array">Sort an array</h3>

<p><code>localeCompare</code> enables a case-insensitive sort of an array.</p>

<pre class="brush: js">var items = ['réservé', 'premier', 'cliché', 'communiqué', 'café', 'adieu'];
items.sort((a, b) =&gt; a.localeCompare(b)); // ['adieu', 'café', 'cliché', 'communiqué', 'premier', 'réservé']
</pre>

<h3 id="Check_browser_support_for_extended_arguments">Check browser support for extended arguments</h3>

<p>The <code>locales</code> and <code>options</code> arguments are not supported in all browsers yet. To check whether an implementation supports them, use the "i" argument (a requirement that illegal language tags are rejected) and look for a {{jsxref("RangeError")}} exception:</p>

<pre class="brush: js">function localeCompareSupportsLocales() {
  try {
    'foo'.localeCompare('bar', 'i');
  } catch (e) {
    return e.name === 'RangeError';
  }
  return false;
}
</pre>

<h3 id="Using_locales">Using <code>locales</code></h3>

<p>The results provided by <code>localeCompare()</code> vary between languages. In order to get the sort order of the language used in the user interface of your application, make sure to specify that language (and possibly some fallback languages) using the <code>locales</code> argument:</p>

<pre class="brush: js">console.log('ä'.localeCompare('z', 'de')); // a negative value: in German, ä sorts before z
console.log('ä'.localeCompare('z', 'sv')); // a positive value: in Swedish, ä sorts after z
</pre>

<h3 id="Using_options">Using <code>options</code></h3>

<p>The results provided by <code>localeCompare()</code> can be customized using the <code>options</code> argument:</p>

<pre class="brush: js">// in German, ä has a as the base letter
console.log('ä'.localeCompare('a', 'de', { sensitivity: 'base' })); // 0

// in Swedish, ä and a are separate base letters
console.log('ä'.localeCompare('a', 'sv', { sensitivity: 'base' })); // a positive value
</pre>

<h2 id="Performance">Performance</h2>

<p>When comparing large numbers of strings, such as in sorting large arrays, it is better to create an {{jsxref("Global_Objects/Collator", "Intl.Collator")}} object and use the function provided by its {{jsxref("Collator.prototype.compare", "compare")}} property.</p>

<h2 id="Specifications">Specifications</h2>

<table class="standard-table">
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <th scope="col">Specification</th>
   <th scope="col">Status</th>
   <th scope="col">Comment</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES3')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES3')}}</td>
   <td>Initial definition. Implemented in JavaScript 1.2.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES5.1', '#sec-15.5.4.9', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES5.1')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES6', '#sec-string.prototype.localecompare', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES6')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ESDraft', '#sec-string.prototype.localecompare', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ESDraft')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES Int 1.0', '#sec-13.1.1', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES Int 1.0')}}</td>
   <td><code>locale</code> and <code>option</code> parameter definitions.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES Int 2.0', '#sec-13.1.1', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES Int 2.0')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('ES Int Draft', '#sec-String.prototype.localeCompare', 'String.prototype.localeCompare')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('ES Int Draft')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

<h2 id="Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</h2>

<p class="hidden">The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out <a href="https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data">https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data</a> and send us a pull request.</p>

<p>{{Compat("javascript.builtins.String.localeCompare")}}</p>

<h2 id="See_also">See also</h2>

<ul>
 <li>{{jsxref("Global_Objects/Collator", "Intl.Collator")}}</li>
</ul>