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Sorting a 2 dimension array??

Hello everyone,

Is there a way to sort a 2 dimension array other then hard coding? I've tried with ArraySort, but it doesn't work with complex variable. So basically, is there a way around this or will I have to code it? I only want to sort on the first dimension of the array.

Any idea how to code this if I have to?? I guess a quicksort would do the trick, is there more efficient sorting algos?? (those arrays tends to get huge)

Thanks

skip

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Scott Bennett

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cheekycj

here is a bubble sort implementation from a web site that I use in my code (its in asp but converting it to cf should be trivial):
Sub DualSorter( byRef arrArray, DimensionToSort )
Dim row, j, StartingKeyValue, StartingOtherValue, _
NewStartingKey, NewStartingOther, _
swap_pos, OtherDimension
Const column = 1

' Ensure that the user has picked a valid DimensionToSort
If DimensionToSort = 1 then
OtherDimension = 0
ElseIf DimensionToSort = 0 then
OtherDimension = 1
Else
'Shoot, invalid value of DimensionToSort
Response.Write "Invalid dimension for DimensionToSort: " & _
"must be value of 1 or 0."
Response.End
End If

For row = 0 To UBound( arrArray, column ) - 1
'Start outer loop.

'Take a snapshot of the first element
'in the array because if there is a
'smaller value elsewhere in the array
'we'll need to do a swap.
StartingKeyValue = arrArray ( row, DimensionToSort )
StartingOtherValue = arrArray ( row, OtherDimension )

' Default the Starting values to the First Record
NewStartingKey = arrArray ( row, DimensionToSort )
NewStartingOther = arrArray ( row, OtherDimension )

swap_pos = row

For j = row + 1 to UBound( arrArray, column )
'Start inner loop.
If arrArray ( j, DimensionToSort ) < NewStartingKey Then
'This is now the lowest number -
'remember it's position.
swap_pos = j
NewStartingKey = arrArray ( j, DimensionToSort )
NewStartingOther = arrArray ( j, OtherDimension )
End If
Next

If swap_pos <> row Then
'If we get here then we are about to do a swap
'within the array.
arrArray ( swap_pos, DimensionToSort ) = StartingKeyValue
arrArray ( swap_pos, OtherDimension ) = StartingOtherValue

arrArray ( row, DimensionToSort ) = NewStartingKey
arrArray ( row, OtherDimension ) = NewStartingOther

End If
Next
End Sub

if you need help converting it let me know.

CJ

skipbo

ASKER

Hi,

SBennett, I tried your solution, it works really well with small arrays, but when things get bigger, it's really taxing on the server resources.

I'll check if I could mix in cheekycj idea and see what happens.

I wonder if the quicksort can be implemented in cold fusion. It use some recursion, but what do you guys think??

Thanks a lot guys. I'll let you know what happens...

skip

Scott Bennett

Yes, I can see how my suggestion would take a lot of proccessing time if the array is extremely large.

I've never really done that before so that was the first solution I thought of. If you come up with a faster solution pleas post it so I can refer to it later.
-scott

skipbo

ASKER

Hello guys,

I spent some time looking around and found this answer from CF_SPIKE. It implements the quick sort algo. So thanks to him and here it is:

------------------------------------------------------
Answer provided by : CF_SPIKE
------------------------------------------------------

Calling Page:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
<title>Quick Sort</title>
</head>

<body>


<CFSCRIPT>
myArray = ArrayNew(2);
myArray[1][1] = '1';
myArray[1][2] = 'Spike';
myArray[1][3] = '28';
myArray[1][4] = 'Male';
myArray[1][5] = 'CreateDate(1972,08,10)';
myArray[1][6] = 'Training';

myArray[2][1] = '2';
myArray[2][2] = 'Jon';
myArray[2][3] = '26';
myArray[2][4] = 'Male';
myArray[2][5] = 'CreateDate(1974,10,23)';
myArray[2][6] = 'Consulting';

myArray[3][1] = '2';
myArray[3][2] = 'Bob';
myArray[3][3] = '22';
myArray[3][4] = 'Male';
myArray[3][5] = 'CreateDate(1979,03,23)';
myArray[3][6] = 'Sales';

myArray[4][1] = '2';
myArray[4][2] = 'Jane';
myArray[4][3] = '20';
myArray[4][4] = 'Female';
myArray[4][5] = 'CreateDate(1980,11,29)';
myArray[4][6] = 'Sales';

</CFSCRIPT>

<CF_QuickSort
Array="#MyArray#"
r_Array="SortedArray"
SortType="Numeric"
SortItem="1">

</body>
</html>

custom Tag:

<CFPARAM NAME="Attributes.Array">
<CFPARAM NAME="Attributes.r_Array">


<CFPARAM NAME="Attributes.SortItem">


<CFPARAM NAME="Attributes.SortType">


<CFPARAM NAME="Attributes.SortOrder" DEFAULT="Asc">


<CFSET NameList = "">


<CFLOOP From="1" To="#ArrayLen(Attributes.Array)#" index="i">

<CFSET NameList = ListAppend(NameList,Attributes.Array[i][Attributes.SortItem])>

</CFLOOP>


<CFSET NewList = ListSort(NameList,Attributes.SortType,Attributes.SortOrder)>


<CFSET NewArray = ArrayNew(2)>
<CFSET Counter = 1>
<CFLOOP LIST="#newList#" INDEX="i">
<CFSET NewArray[counter] = Attributes.Array[ListFind(NameList,i)]>
<CFSET Counter = Counter + 1>
</CFLOOP>

<CFSET "Caller.#Attributes.r_Array#" = NewArray>

EGray

The CF_SPIKE solution and its variants won't work properly if the data in the array contains duplicate values in the sorted column. I came to this site looking for an answer to the original question in this thread, and tried this solution. But I couldn't use it because I do have duplicate values.

I came up with two different ways of doing this, both of which work no matter what the values are. The first is to loop through the array, combine the rows using a separator - I used CHR(30) - into a single dimension array, sort it using arraysort(), and then set up a new array and loop through your sorted array, populating the new array by pulling each element apart again using GetToken().

However, I still had a little problem to overcome. The column which I want to sort contains numeric (integer) values. But now with the combined data, a numeric sort fails because the data is no longer a number, and a text sort returns incorrect order (1,10,2, etc.). The solution: use the NumberFormat operator to pad zeros in front of the number, do a text sort, and then use NumberFormat again to drop the zeros in the final array.

Sample code, for a 2D array with 3 columns:

<CFSET MyDelim = Chr(30)>
<CFSET My1DArray = ArrayNew(1)>
<CFLOOP INDEX="LoopCount" FROM = "1" TO = "#ArrayLen(MyOld2DArray)#">
<CFSET My1DArray[LoopCount]= "#NumberFormat(MyOld2DArray[LoopCount][1],0000000.)##MyDelim##MyOld2DArray[LoopCount][2]##MyDelim##MyOld2DArray[LoopCount][3]#">
</CFLOOP>

<CFSET temp = ArraySort(My1DArray, "TextNoCase", "Desc")>

<CFSET My2DArray = ArrayNew(2)>
<CFLOOP INDEX="LoopCount" FROM = "1" TO = "#ArrayLen(My1DArray)#">
<CFSET My2DArray[LoopCount][1] = NumberFormat(GetToken(My1DArray[LoopCount],"1", "#MyDelim#"))>
<CFSET My2DArray[LoopCount][2] = GetToken(My1DArray[LoopCount],"2", "#MyDelim#")>
<CFSET My2DArray[LoopCount][3] = GetToken(My1DArray[LoopCount],"3", "#MyDelim#")>
</CFLOOP>

But this is pretty clunky. The more elegant solution, if you have access to a SQL database, is to create a dedicated table to do the sorting. Delete all rows in the table, insert your array, then query the table using "ORDER BY" and then empty the table again when you are done.

hanneman

well, it wasnt trivial, but here is the bubble sort for CF. phew. please post any improvements.

<cfset tmparr = ArrayNew(2)>
<cfset tmparr[1][1] = 1>
<cfset tmparr[1][2] = "reca">
<cfset tmparr[2][1] = 4>
<cfset tmparr[2][2] = "recb">
<cfset tmparr[3][1] = 2>
<cfset tmparr[3][2] = "recc">
<cfset tmparr[4][1] = 5>
<cfset tmparr[4][2] = "recd">

<cfscript>
Function DualSorter(arrArray, DimensionToSort)
{
var row = 0;
      var j = 0;
      var StartingKeyValue = "";
      var StartingOtherValue = "";
      var NewStartingKey = "";
      var NewStartingOther = "";
      var swap_pos = "";
      var OtherDimension = "";
      var column = 1;

// Ensure that the user has picked a valid DimensionToSort
If (DimensionToSort eq 1){
            OtherDimension = 0;}

      If (DimensionToSort eq 0){
            OtherDimension = 1;}

      If (Otherdimension eq "") {
       //Shoot, invalid value of DimensionToSort
       Writeoutput("Invalid dimension for DimensionToSort: must be value of 1 or 0.");
       break;
       }

       dimensiontosort = incrementvalue(dimensiontosort);
       otherdimension = incrementvalue(otherdimension);

For (row = 1; row lte arraylen(arrarray);row=row+1){
//Start outer loop.

//Take a snapshot of the first element
//in the array because if there is a
//smaller value elsewhere in the array
//we'll need to do a swap.
            StartingKeyValue = arrArray[row][DimensionToSort];
StartingOtherValue = arrArray[row][OtherDimension];

// Default the Starting values to the First Record
NewStartingKey = arrArray[row][DimensionToSort];
NewStartingOther = arrArray[row][OtherDimension];

swap_pos = row;

For (j = row + 1; j lte arraylen(arrarray);j=j+1){
//Start inner loop.
If (arrArray[j][DimensionToSort] gt NewStartingKey)
                  {
//This is now the lowest number -
//remember it's position.
swap_pos = j;
NewStartingKey = arrArray[j][DimensionToSort];
NewStartingOther = arrArray[j][OtherDimension];
}
}

If (swap_pos neq row) {
//If we get here then we are about to do a swap
//within the array.
arrArray [swap_pos][DimensionToSort] = StartingKeyValue;
arrArray [swap_pos][OtherDimension] = StartingOtherValue;

arrArray [row][DimensionToSort] = NewStartingKey;
arrArray [row][OtherDimension] = NewStartingOther;
}
}
      return arrarray;
}

writeoutput(arraylen(tmparr)&"<br>");
tmparr = dualsorter(tmparr, 0);

for (n = 1; n lte arraylen(tmparr);n=n+1)
{
writeoutput(#tmparr[n][1]#&","&#tmparr[n][2]#&"<br>");
}

</cfscript>