Is there any EASY way to sort an array in descending order like how they have a sort in ascending order in the Arrays class?
Or do I have to stop being lazy and do this myself :[
26 Answers
It's not directly possible to reverse sort an array of primitives (i.e., int[] arr = {1, 2, 3};) using Arrays.sort() and Collections.reverseOrder() because those methods require reference types (Integer) instead of primitive types (int).
However, we can use Java 8 Stream to first box the array to sort in reverse order:
// an array of ints
int[] arr = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6};
// an array of reverse sorted ints
int[] arrDesc = Arrays.stream(arr).boxed()
.sorted(Collections.reverseOrder())
.mapToInt(Integer::intValue)
.toArray();
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(arrDesc)); // outputs [6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]
When an array is a type of Integer class then you can use below:
Integer[] arr = {7, 10, 4, 3, 20, 15};
Arrays.sort(arr, Collections.reverseOrder());
When an array is a type of int data type then you can use below:
int[] arr = {7, 10, 4, 3, 20, 15};
int[] reverseArr = IntStream.rangeClosed(1, arr.length).map(i -> arr[arr.length-i]).toArray();
For discussions above, here is an easy example to sort the primitive arrays in descending order.
import java.util.Arrays;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int[] nums = { 5, 4, 1, 2, 9, 7, 3, 8, 6, 0 };
Arrays.sort(nums);
// reverse the array, just like dumping the array!
// swap(1st, 1st-last) <= 1st: 0, 1st-last: nums.length - 1
// swap(2nd, 2nd-last) <= 2nd: i++, 2nd-last: j--
// swap(3rd, 3rd-last) <= 3rd: i++, 3rd-last: j--
//
for (int i = 0, j = nums.length - 1, tmp; i < j; i++, j--) {
tmp = nums[i];
nums[i] = nums[j];
nums[j] = tmp;
}
// dump the array (for Java 4/5/6/7/8/9)
for (int i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
System.out.println("nums[" + i + "] = " + nums[i]);
}
}
}
Output:
nums[0] = 9
nums[1] = 8
nums[2] = 7
nums[3] = 6
nums[4] = 5
nums[5] = 4
nums[6] = 3
nums[7] = 2
nums[8] = 1
nums[9] = 0
For 2D arrays to sort in descending order you can just flip the positions of the parameters
int[][] array= {
{1, 5},
{13, 1},
{12, 100},
{12, 85}
};
Arrays.sort(array, (a, b) -> Integer.compare(a[1], b[1])); // for ascending order
Arrays.sort(array, (b, a) -> Integer.compare(a[1], b[1])); // for descending order
Output for descending
12, 100
12, 85
1, 5
13, 1
You could use stream operations (Collections.stream()) with Comparator.reverseOrder().
For example, say you have this collection:
List<String> items = new ArrayList<>();
items.add("item01");
items.add("item02");
items.add("item03");
items.add("item04");
items.add("item04");
To print the items in their "natural" order you could use the sorted() method (or leave it out and get the same result):
items.stream()
.sorted()
.forEach(item -> System.out.println(item));
Or to print them in descending (reverse) order, you could use the sorted method that takes a Comparator and reverse the order:
items.stream()
.sorted(Comparator.reverseOrder())
.forEach(item -> System.out.println(item));
Note this requires the collection to have implemented Comparable (as do Integer, String, etc.).
There is a lot of mess going on here - people suggest solutions for non-primitive values, try to implement some sorting algos from the ground, give solutions involving additional libraries, showing off some hacky ones etc. The answer to the original question is 50/50. For those who just want to copy/paste:
// our initial int[] array containing primitives
int[] arrOfPrimitives = new int[]{1,2,3,4,5,6};
// we have to convert it into array of Objects, using java's boxing
Integer[] arrOfObjects = new Integer[arrOfPrimitives.length];
for (int i = 0; i < arrOfPrimitives.length; i++)
arrOfObjects[i] = new Integer(arrOfPrimitives[i]);
// now when we have an array of Objects we can use that nice built-in method
Arrays.sort(arrOfObjects, Collections.reverseOrder());
arrOfObjects is {6,5,4,3,2,1} now. If you have an array of something other than ints - use the corresponding object instead of Integer.
Simple method to sort an int array descending:
private static int[] descendingArray(int[] array) {
Arrays.sort(array);
int[] descArray = new int[array.length];
for(int i=0; i<array.length; i++) {
descArray[i] = array[(array.length-1)-i];
}
return descArray;
}
public double[] sortArrayAlgorithm(double[] array) { //sort in descending order
for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < array.length; j++) {
if (array[i] >= array[j]) {
double x = array[i];
array[i] = array[j];
array[j] = x;
}
}
}
return array;
}
just use this method to sort an array of type double in descending order, you can use it to sort arrays of any other types(like int, float, and etc) just by changing the "return type", the "argument type" and the variable "x" type to the corresponding type. you can also change ">=" to "<=" in the if condition to make the order ascending.
Another way with Comparator
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Comparator;
...
Integer[] aInt = {6,2,3,4,1,5,7,8,9,10};
Arrays.sort(aInt, Comparator.reverseOrder() );
It's good sometimes we practice over an example, here is a full one:
sortdesc.java
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;
class sortdesc{
public static void main(String[] args){
// int Array
Integer[] intArray=new Integer[]{
new Integer(15),
new Integer(9),
new Integer(16),
new Integer(2),
new Integer(30)};
// Sorting int Array in descending order
Arrays.sort(intArray,Collections.reverseOrder());
// Displaying elements of int Array
System.out.println("Int Array Elements in reverse order:");
for(int i=0;i<intArray.length;i++)
System.out.println(intArray[i]);
// String Array
String[] stringArray=new String[]{"FF","PP","AA","OO","DD"};
// Sorting String Array in descending order
Arrays.sort(stringArray,Collections.reverseOrder());
// Displaying elements of String Array
System.out.println("String Array Elements in reverse order:");
for(int i=0;i<stringArray.length;i++)
System.out.println(stringArray[i]);}}
compiling it...
javac sortdec.java
calling it...
java sortdesc
OUTPUT
Int Array Elements in reverse order:
30
16
15
9
2
String Array Elements in reverse order:
PP
OO
FF
DD
AA
If you want to try an alphanumeric array...
//replace this line:
String[] stringArray=new String[]{"FF","PP","AA","OO","DD"};
//with this:
String[] stringArray=new String[]{"10FF","20AA","50AA"};
you gonna get the OUTPUT as follow:
50AA
20AA
10FF
There is a way that might be a little bit longer, but it works fine. This is a method to sort an int array descendingly.
Hope that this will help someone ,,, some day:
public static int[] sortArray (int[] array) {
int [] sortedArray = new int[array.length];
for (int i = 0; i < sortedArray.length; i++) {
sortedArray[i] = array[i];
}
boolean flag = true;
int temp;
while (flag) {
flag = false;
for (int i = 0; i < sortedArray.length - 1; i++) {
if(sortedArray[i] < sortedArray[i+1]) {
temp = sortedArray[i];
sortedArray[i] = sortedArray[i+1];
sortedArray[i+1] = temp;
flag = true;
}
}
}
return sortedArray;
}
I had the below working solution
public static int[] sortArrayDesc(int[] intArray){
Arrays.sort(intArray); //sort intArray in Asc order
int[] sortedArray = new int[intArray.length]; //this array will hold the sorted values
int indexSortedArray = 0;
for(int i=intArray.length-1 ; i >= 0 ; i--){ //insert to sortedArray in reverse order
sortedArray[indexSortedArray ++] = intArray [i];
}
return sortedArray;
}
Here is how I sorted a primitive type int array.
int[] intArr = new int[] {9,4,1,7};
Arrays.sort(nums);
Collections.reverse(Arrays.asList(nums));
Result:
[1, 4, 7, 9]
I know many answers are here, but still thinks , none of them tried using core java. And using collection api , you will end up wasting so much memory and reseduals.
here is a try with pure core concepts , and yes this may be better way if you are more concerned about memory footprints.
int[] elements = new int [] {10,999,999,-58,548,145,255,889,1,1,4,5555,0,-1,-52};
//int[] elements = null;
if(elements != null && elements.length >1)
{
int max = 0, index = 0;
for(int i =0;i<elements.length;i++)//find out what is Max
{
if(elements[i] > max)
{
max = elements[i];
index = i;
}
}
elements[index] = elements[0];//Swap the places
elements[0] = max;
for(int i =0;i < elements.length;i++)//loop over element
{
for(int j = i+1;j < elements.length;j++)//loop to compare the elements
{
if(elements[j] > elements[i])
{
max = elements[j];
elements[j] = elements[i];
elements[i] = max;
}
}
}
}//i ended up using three loops and 2 extra variables
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(elements));//if null it will print null
// still love to learn more, please advise if we can do it better.
Love to learn from you too !
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