Sorting an Array of Objects by Nested Property Without Mutating the Original Array in TypeScript
This might be a silly question, but I'm optimizing some code but I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but Building an application that requires sorting an array of user objects based on their `profile.age` property has become a bit of a challenge. I want to maintain the immutability of the original array while creating a sorted version. Here’s the code I have: ```typescript interface User { id: number; name: string; profile: { age: number; }; } const users: User[] = [ { id: 1, name: 'Alice', profile: { age: 30 } }, { id: 2, name: 'Bob', profile: { age: 25 } }, { id: 3, name: 'Charlie', profile: { age: 35 } } ]; const sortUsersByAge = (users: User[]): User[] => { return users.sort((a, b) => a.profile.age - b.profile.age); }; const sortedUsers = sortUsersByAge(users); console.log(sortedUsers); console.log(users); // Original array should not be mutated ``` While testing, I noticed that the original `users` array gets mutated after sorting. The output for the original array shows a changed order, which is unexpected. I realized that the `sort` method sorts the array in place. I've tried using `slice()` to create a shallow copy before sorting, but I want to ensure that this approach is efficient and still avoids any accidental mutations. Here’s what I tried with `slice()`: ```typescript const sortUsersByAgeImmutable = (users: User[]): User[] => { return users.slice().sort((a, b) => a.profile.age - b.profile.age); }; const sortedUsersImmutable = sortUsersByAgeImmutable(users); console.log(sortedUsersImmutable); console.log(users); // Original should remain unchanged ``` This seems to work, but I'm curious if this is the most optimal way to handle this scenario in TypeScript, especially as the array size increases. Any suggestions for improving performance or alternative methods to achieve immutability while sorting? For context: I'm using Typescript on macOS. Thanks in advance! I'm working on a application that needs to handle this. Any ideas what could be causing this? What's the correct way to implement this? Am I approaching this the right way?