java.util.Arrays sort(float[] a)

Description

On this document we will be showing a java example on how to use the sort(float[] a) method of Arrays Class. Basically the sort(float[] a) method sorts the specified array into ascending numerical order. The sort() method is overloaded in such a way that each primitive data type is handled. On this example we will be showing the sorting of array of float.

The < relation does not provide a total order on all float values: -0.0f == 0.0f is true and a Float.NaN value compares neither less than, greater than, nor equal to any value, even itself. This method uses the total order imposed by the method Float.compareTo(java.lang.Float): -0.0f is treated as less than value 0.0f and Float.NaN is considered greater than any other value and all Float.NaN values are considered equal.

Notes:

  • The sorting algorithm is a Dual-Pivot Quicksort by Vladimir Yaroslavskiy, Jon Bentley, and Joshua Bloch. This algorithm offers O(n log(n)) performance on many data sets that cause other quicksorts to degrade to quadratic performance, and is typically faster than traditional (one-pivot) Quicksort implementations.
  • This method will yield the same result as sort(float[] a, int fromIndex, int toIndex) method on such cases that the fromIndex is 0 and endIndex is equal to length. In short Arrays.sort(float[] a) is equals to Arrays.sort(float[] a, 0,a.length).

Method Syntax

public static void sort(float[] a)

Method Argument

Data Type Parameter Description
float[] a the array to be sorted

Method Returns

The sort(float[] a) method returns void.

Compatibility

Requires Java 1.2 and up

Java Arrays sort(float[] a) Example

Below is a java code demonstrates the use of sort(float[] a) method of Arrays class. The example presented might be simple however it shows the behavior of the sort(float[] a) method.

package com.javatutorialhq.java.examples;

import java.util.Arrays;

/*
 * A java example source code to demonstrate
 * the use of sort(float[] a) method of Arrays class
 */

public class ArraysSortFloatExample {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		// initialize a new float array
		float[] a = new float[]{1.12f,7.32f,3.21f,1.07f,9.2f,1.7f,10.12f};
		
		// print the contents of array of float
		System.out.println("Original:"+Arrays.toString(a));
		
		// sort our array of float in ascending order
		Arrays.sort(a);
		
		// print the sorted array of float
		System.out.println("Sorted:"+Arrays.toString(a));
		
	}
}

The above java example source code demonstrates the use of sort(float[] a) method of Arrays class. We simply declare a new float array and we printed the values using the toString() method of Arrays class. Then we sorted the float array using the sort() method and the sorted values were also printed the same way as what we did on the original/unsorted array.

Sample Output

Below is the sample output when you run the above example.

Arrays sort(float[] a) example output