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Sorting Array by Another
I know this has been asked many times but I don't understand the answers...
Basically I have two arrays.
The first is $wordlist and contains a list of words. (e.g. $wordlist[0]='hello'; $wordlist[1]='bye';)
The second is $weight and contains a list of numbers where each value is the weight of the corresponding word from $wordlist with the same array number. (e.g. $weight[0]=100; $weight[1]=150;)
So I just want to sort the $wordlist array by the $weight array so that the highest weight is first. Actually I only want to find the highest weight, it's not totally necessary to return the full list.
I could just loop through the array to find the highest, but I don't want to do this because $wordlist is very long and the function is called a lot, so that would slow down the script. Better to use a quicksort implementation (such as the PHP built-in sorts).
How would I do this?
Thanks!
Basically I have two arrays.
The first is $wordlist and contains a list of words. (e.g. $wordlist[0]='hello'; $wordlist[1]='bye';)
The second is $weight and contains a list of numbers where each value is the weight of the corresponding word from $wordlist with the same array number. (e.g. $weight[0]=100; $weight[1]=150;)
So I just want to sort the $wordlist array by the $weight array so that the highest weight is first. Actually I only want to find the highest weight, it's not totally necessary to return the full list.
I could just loop through the array to find the highest, but I don't want to do this because $wordlist is very long and the function is called a lot, so that would slow down the script. Better to use a quicksort implementation (such as the PHP built-in sorts).
How would I do this?
Thanks!
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But you say you need only the word with maximum weight, not the entire ordered list.
A quick sort is better for ordering the entire list, but not for finding a single element. This is best way (just a single loop to check the weight of every element).
Regards
A quick sort is better for ordering the entire list, but not for finding a single element. This is best way (just a single loop to check the weight of every element).
Regards
ASKER
Ah OK. If this is faster than that's better. Thanks.
Yes, to find a maximum costs O(n), while to order an array by using quicksort costs about O(n*log n).
So if you have a thousand elements this will lmake a thousand comparations, while quicksort will do about a ten thousand comparations in average.
Regards.
So if you have a thousand elements this will lmake a thousand comparations, while quicksort will do about a ten thousand comparations in average.
Regards.
ASKER