Sorting and Related Functions

Julia has an extensive, flexible API for sorting and interacting with already-sorted arrays of values. By default, Julia picks reasonable algorithms and sorts in standard ascending order:

julia> sort([2,3,1])
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
 1
 2
 3

You can easily sort in reverse order as well:

julia> sort([2,3,1], rev=true)
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
 3
 2
 1

To sort an array in-place, use the "bang" version of the sort function:

julia> a = [2,3,1];

julia> sort!(a);

julia> a
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
 1
 2
 3

Instead of directly sorting an array, you can compute a permutation of the array's indices that puts the array into sorted order:

julia> v = randn(5)
5-element Array{Float64,1}:
  0.297288
  0.382396
 -0.597634
 -0.0104452
 -0.839027

julia> p = sortperm(v)
5-element Array{Int64,1}:
 5
 3
 4
 1
 2

julia> v[p]
5-element Array{Float64,1}:
 -0.839027
 -0.597634
 -0.0104452
  0.297288
  0.382396

Arrays can easily be sorted according to an arbitrary transformation of their values:

julia> sort(v, by=abs)
5-element Array{Float64,1}:
 -0.0104452
  0.297288
  0.382396
 -0.597634
 -0.839027

Or in reverse order by a transformation:

julia> sort(v, by=abs, rev=true)
5-element Array{Float64,1}:
 -0.839027
 -0.597634
  0.382396
  0.297288
 -0.0104452

If needed, the sorting algorithm can be chosen:

julia> sort(v, alg=InsertionSort)
5-element Array{Float64,1}:
 -0.839027
 -0.597634
 -0.0104452
  0.297288
  0.382396

All the sorting and order related functions rely on a "less than" relation defining a total order on the values to be manipulated. The isless function is invoked by default, but the relation can be specified via the lt keyword.

Sorting Functions

```@docs Base.sort! Base.sort Base.sortperm Base.Sort.sortperm! Base.Sort.sortrows Base.Sort.sortcols


## Order-Related Functions

```@docs
Base.issorted
Base.Sort.searchsorted
Base.Sort.searchsortedfirst
Base.Sort.searchsortedlast
Base.Sort.select!
Base.Sort.select
Base.Sort.selectperm
Base.Sort.selectperm!

Sorting Algorithms

There are currently four sorting algorithms available in base Julia:

  • InsertionSort
  • QuickSort
  • PartialQuickSort(k)
  • MergeSort

InsertionSort is an O(n^2) stable sorting algorithm. It is efficient for very small n, and is used internally by QuickSort.

QuickSort is an O(n log n) sorting algorithm which is in-place, very fast, but not stable – i.e. elements which are considered equal will not remain in the same order in which they originally appeared in the array to be sorted. QuickSort is the default algorithm for numeric values, including integers and floats.

PartialQuickSort(k) is similar to QuickSort, but the output array is only sorted up to index k if k is an integer, or in the range of k if k is an OrdinalRange. For example:

x = rand(1:500, 100)
k = 50
k2 = 50:100
s = sort(x; alg=QuickSort)
ps = sort(x; alg=PartialQuickSort(k))
qs = sort(x; alg=PartialQuickSort(k2))
map(issorted, (s, ps, qs))             # => (true, false, false)
map(x->issorted(x[1:k]), (s, ps, qs))  # => (true, true, false)
map(x->issorted(x[k2]), (s, ps, qs))   # => (true, false, true)
s[1:k] == ps[1:k]                      # => true
s[k2] == qs[k2]                        # => true

MergeSort is an O(n log n) stable sorting algorithm but is not in-place – it requires a temporary array of half the size of the input array – and is typically not quite as fast as QuickSort. It is the default algorithm for non-numeric data.

The default sorting algorithms are chosen on the basis that they are fast and stable, or appear to be so. For numeric types indeed, QuickSort is selected as it is faster and indistinguishable in this case from a stable sort (unless the array records its mutations in some way). The stability property comes at a non-negligible cost, so if you don't need it, you may want to explicitly specify your preferred algorithm, e.g. sort!(v, alg=QuickSort).

The mechanism by which Julia picks default sorting algorithms is implemented via the Base.Sort.defalg function. It allows a particular algorithm to be registered as the default in all sorting functions for specific arrays. For example, here are the two default methods from sort.jl:

defalg(v::AbstractArray) = MergeSort
defalg(v::AbstractArray{<:Number}) = QuickSort

As for numeric arrays, choosing a non-stable default algorithm for array types for which the notion of a stable sort is meaningless (i.e. when two values comparing equal can not be distinguished) may make sense.