Optimized javascript code to find 3 largest element and its indexes in array?

Without sorting the huge array: Runs in O(n) which is superior to anything that involves sorting the original array. Returns an array of the largest values and their indices in the initial array. With some smarter code you can eliminate the sorting of the small array which results in a better worst-case performance.

var ar = [93, 17, 56, 91, 98, 33, 9, 38, 55, 78, 29, 81, 60];
console.log(`input is: ${ar}`);

function getMax(ar){
    if (ar.length <= 3) return ar;
    let max = [{value:ar[0],index:0},
               {value:ar[1],index:1},
               {value:ar[2],index:2}];
    max.sort((a,b)=>a.value-b.value);
        
    for (let i = 3;i<ar.length;i++){
        if (ar[i] > max[0].value){
           max[0] = {value:ar[i],index:i};
           max.sort((a,b)=>a.value-b.value);
        }
    }
    return max;
}

result = getMax(ar);

console.log('the three largest values are:');
console.log(result);

Modified version

I have modified my answer to make it more generic. It searches for the indices of the n largest numbers of elements in the array:

var scoreByPattern = [93,255,17,56,91,98,33,9,38,55,78,29,81,60];

function findIndicesOfMax(inp, count) {
    var outp = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < inp.length; i++) {
        outp.push(i); // add index to output array
        if (outp.length > count) {
            outp.sort(function(a, b) { return inp[b] - inp[a]; }); // descending sort the output array
            outp.pop(); // remove the last index (index of smallest element in output array)
        }
    }
    return outp;
}

// show original array
console.log(scoreByPattern);

// get indices of 3 greatest elements
var indices = findIndicesOfMax(scoreByPattern, 3);
console.log(indices);

// show 3 greatest scores
for (var i = 0; i < indices.length; i++)
    console.log(scoreByPattern[indices[i]]);

Here is a jsFiddle


The default javascript sort callback won't work well because it sorts in a lexicographical order. 10 would become before 5(because of the 1)

No credit to me but:

my_array.sort(function(a,b) {
    return a-b;
});

You can sort the array descending. Then the indexes of the highest 3 values will be the first three items in the array. You can access them individually or use slice() to get them at once. The example below shows both methods.

var maxPoints = new Array();
var scoreByPattern = new Array(93, 17, 56, 91, 98, 33, 9, 38, 55, 78, 29, 81, 60);

findLargest3();

function findLargest3() {
  scoreByPattern.sort((a, b) => a < b ? 1 : a > b ? -1 : 0);
  
  console.log(scoreByPattern + "/******/" + scoreByPattern[0] + "/" + scoreByPattern[1] + "/" + scoreByPattern[2]);  
  console.log(scoreByPattern.slice(0, 3));
}