Welcome to our exploration of sorted maps using custom classes and comparators in TypeScript. In today's lesson, we'll learn how to use custom classes as keys in sorted maps. This approach enhances data organization and access. While TypeScript does not possess a built-in sorted map, we can use the @datastructures-js/binary-search-tree
library to achieve this functionality, leveraging TypeScript’s robust type system to enforce type safety and clarity.
Custom classes enable us to create objects that align with our data requirements — for instance, a Person
class for employee information or a Book
class for a library database. In TypeScript, classes not only serve as blueprints for creating objects but also offer type annotations for ensuring type safety.
Consider this simple class, for example:
Using custom classes helps organize complex multivariate data. We will use the @datastructures-js/binary-search-tree
library to maintain our data in a sorted order. Below is an example of how to use comparators to dictate the order when using custom classes with this binary search tree:
