std::sort

 

C++

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Utilities library

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Algorithms library

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Numerics library

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Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Functions
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each countcount_if mismatch equal	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of adjacent_find search search_n
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) fill fill_n transform generate generate_n removeremove_if remove_copyremove_copy_if	replacereplace_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if swap swap_ranges iter_swap reverse reverse_copy rotate rotate_copy random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11) unique unique_copy
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition partition_point (C++11)
Sorting operations (on sorted ranges)
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11) sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy stable_sort nth_element
Binary search operations (on sorted ranges)
lower_bound upper_bound	binary_search equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge includes	set_difference set_intersection set_symmetric_difference set_union
Heap operations
is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11) make_heap	push_heap pop_heap sort_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element min min_element minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	lexicographical_compare is_permutation (C++11) next_permutation prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) accumulate inner_product	adjacent_difference partial_sum
C library
qsort	bsearch

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
template< class RandomIt > void sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt last );	(1)
template< class RandomIt, class Compare > void sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt last, Compare comp );	(2)

Sorts the elements in the range [first, last) in ascending order. The order of equal elements is not guaranteed to be preserved. The first version uses operator< to compare the elements, the second version uses the given comparison function object comp.

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to sort
comp	-	comparison function object (i.e. an object that satisfies the requirements of Compare) which returns ​true if the first argument is less than (i.e. is ordered before) the second. The signature of the comparison function should be equivalent to the following:  bool cmp(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); The signature does not need to have const &, but the function object must not modify the objects passed to it. The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type RandomIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both of them. ​
Type requirements
- RandomIt must meet the requirements of ValueSwappable and RandomAccessIterator.
- The type of dereferenced RandomIt must meet the requirements of MoveAssignable and MoveConstructible.
- Compare must meet the requirements of Compare.

Return value

(none)

Complexity

O(N·log(N)), where N = std::distance(first, last) comparisons on average.	(until C++11)
O(N·log(N)), where N = std::distance(first, last) comparisons.	(since C++11)

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
#include <array>
#include <iostream>
 
int main()
{
    std::array<int, 10> s = {5, 7, 4, 2, 8, 6, 1, 9, 0, 3}; 
 
    // sort using the default operator<
    std::sort(s.begin(), s.end());
    for (int a : s) {
        std::cout << a << " ";
    }   
    std::cout << '\n';
 
    // sort using a standard library compare function object
    std::sort(s.begin(), s.end(), std::greater<int>());
    for (int a : s) {
        std::cout << a << " ";
    }   
    std::cout << '\n';
 
    // sort using a custom function object
    struct {
        bool operator()(int a, int b)
        {   
            return a < b;
        }   
    } customLess;
    std::sort(s.begin(), s.end(), customLess);
    for (int a : s) {
        std::cout << a << " ";
    }   
    std::cout << '\n';
 
    // sort using a lambda expression 
    std::sort(s.begin(), s.end(), [](int a, int b) {
        return b < a;   
    });
    for (int a : s) {
        std::cout << a << " ";
    } 
    std::cout << '\n';
}

Output:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

See also

partial_sort	sorts the first N elements of a range (function template)
stable_sort	sorts a range of elements while preserving order between equal elements (function template)
std::experimental::parallel::sort (parallelism TS)	parallelized version of std::sort (function template)