Array::Sort<T> Method (array<T>, IComparer<T>)
Sorts the elements in an Array using the specified IComparer<T> generic interface.
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Type Parameters
- T
The type of the elements of the array.
Parameters
- array
- Type: array<T>
The one-dimensional, zero-base Array to sort
- comparer
- Type: System.Collections.Generic::IComparer<T>
The IComparer<T> generic interface implementation to use when comparing elements, or nullptr to use the IComparable<T> generic interface implementation of each element.
| Exception | Condition |
|---|---|
| ArgumentNullException | array is nullptr. |
| InvalidOperationException | comparer is nullptr, and one or more elements in array do not implement the IComparable<T> generic interface. |
| ArgumentException | The implementation of comparer caused an error during the sort. For example, comparer might not return 0 when comparing an item with itself. |
If comparer is nullptr, each element of array must implement the IComparable<T> generic interface to be capable of comparisons with every other element in array.
If the sort is not successfully completed, the results are undefined.
This method uses the QuickSort algorithm. This implementation performs an unstable sort; that is, if two elements are equal, their order might not be preserved. In contrast, a stable sort preserves the order of elements that are equal.
On average, this method is an O(n log n) operation, where n is the Length of array; in the worst case it is an O(n ^ 2) operation.
The following code example demonstrates the Sort<T>(array<T>, IComparer<T>) generic method overload and the BinarySearch<T>(array<T>, T, IComparer<T>) generic method overload.
The code example defines an alternative comparer for strings, named ReverseCompare, which implements the IComparer<string> (IComparer(Of String) in Visual Basic, IComparer<String^> in Visual C++) generic interface. The comparer calls the CompareTo(String) method, reversing the order of the comparands so that the strings sort high-to-low instead of low-to-high.
The array is displayed, sorted, and displayed again. Arrays must be sorted in order to use the BinarySearch method.
Note |
|---|
The calls to the Sort<T>(array<T>, IComparer<T>) and BinarySearch<T>(array<T>, T, IComparer<T>) generic methods do not look any different from calls to their nongeneric counterparts, because Visual Basic, C#, and C++ infer the type of the generic type parameter from the type of the first argument. If you use the Ildasm.exe (MSIL Disassembler) to examine the Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL), you can see that the generic methods are being called. |
The BinarySearch<T>(array<T>, T, IComparer<T>) generic method overload is then used to search for two strings, one that is not in the array and one that is. The array and the return value of the BinarySearch<T>(array<T>, T, IComparer<T>) method are passed to the ShowWhere generic method, which displays the index value if the string is found, and otherwise the elements the search string would fall between if it were in the array. The index is negative if the string is not n the array, so the ShowWhere method takes the bitwise complement (the ~ operator in C# and Visual C++, Xor -1 in Visual Basic) to obtain the index of the first element in the list that is larger than the search string.
using namespace System; using namespace System::Collections::Generic; public ref class ReverseComparer: IComparer<String^> { public: virtual int Compare(String^ x, String^ y) { // Compare y and x in reverse order. return y->CompareTo(x); } }; generic<typename T> void ShowWhere(array<T>^ arr, int index) { if (index<0) { // If the index is negative, it represents the bitwise // complement of the next larger element in the array. // index = ~index; Console::Write("Not found. Sorts between: "); if (index == 0) Console::Write("beginning of array and "); else Console::Write("{0} and ", arr[index-1]); if (index == arr->Length) Console::WriteLine("end of array."); else Console::WriteLine("{0}.", arr[index]); } else { Console::WriteLine("Found at index {0}.", index); } }; void main() { array<String^>^ dinosaurs = {"Pachycephalosaurus", "Amargasaurus", "Tyrannosaurus", "Mamenchisaurus", "Deinonychus", "Edmontosaurus"}; Console::WriteLine(); for each(String^ dinosaur in dinosaurs) { Console::WriteLine(dinosaur); } ReverseComparer^ rc = gcnew ReverseComparer(); Console::WriteLine("\nSort"); Array::Sort(dinosaurs, rc); Console::WriteLine(); for each(String^ dinosaur in dinosaurs) { Console::WriteLine(dinosaur); } Console::WriteLine("\nBinarySearch for 'Coelophysis':"); int index = Array::BinarySearch(dinosaurs, "Coelophysis", rc); ShowWhere(dinosaurs, index); Console::WriteLine("\nBinarySearch for 'Tyrannosaurus':"); index = Array::BinarySearch(dinosaurs, "Tyrannosaurus", rc); ShowWhere(dinosaurs, index); } /* This code example produces the following output: Pachycephalosaurus Amargasaurus Tyrannosaurus Mamenchisaurus Deinonychus Edmontosaurus Sort Tyrannosaurus Pachycephalosaurus Mamenchisaurus Edmontosaurus Deinonychus Amargasaurus BinarySearch for 'Coelophysis': Not found. Sorts between: Deinonychus and Amargasaurus. BinarySearch for 'Tyrannosaurus': Found at index 0. */
Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows XP SP2 x64 Edition, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2
The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.
Note