How to turn a string into a date value

Question

Hi All,
What is the best way to approach a date sorting issue I have?
A web service that I consume returns a date column in a string
format. Thus when the user clicks the column to sort a data grid by
that date value it sorts incorrectly.
I realize I could put a sort() on the grid or convert the
data somehow. I am hoping several people can give me what would be
considered a "best practice" from a code readability and
performance point of view.
Thannks in advance for your thoughts on this issue.

Answer 1

you dont have to convert anything just implement function and
asign it to Sort object's "compareFunction" property
The compare function must have the following signature:
function [name](a:Object, b:Object, fields:Array=null):int
This function must return the following
* -1, if a should appear before b in the sorted sequence
* 0, if a equals b
* 1, if a should appear after b in the sorted sequence
inside that function you might need a tmp conversion but
overall that should be it
for example (function can look like this :
if a===b) return 0;
if(myStringToDateConvertor(a) > myStringToDateConvertor(m)
) return 1;
if(myStringToDateConvertor(a) < myStringToDateConvertor(m)
) return -1;
return 0;
(remember sortField also has has compareFunction property but
you dont need that one).