Counting inversions in an array

Question

I\'m designing an algorithm to do the following: Given array A[1... n], for every i < j, find all inversion pairs such that A[i] > A[j]

Answer 1

The easy O(n^2) answer is to use nested for-loops and increment a counter for every inversion

int counter = 0;

for(int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++)
{
    for(int j = i+1; j < n; j++)
    {
        if( A[i] > A[j] )
        {
            counter++;
        }
    }
}

return counter;

Now I suppose you want a more efficient solution, I'll think about it.