get indexes of n smallest elements in an array

Question

I have an int array int[] myArray = new int[100]; and want to get indexes of smallest 10 (any n) elements. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Sort them by index and return the first 10

First create the structure to hold both, index and value:

class IndexValue {
   final int i;
   final int v;
}

Then create an array with this new structure:

IndexValue[] array = new IndexValue[myArray.length];
for( int i = 0 ; i < array.length ; i++ ) {
    array[i] = new IndexValue( i, myArray[i] );
}

Finally sort it and take the first N elements

Arrays.sort( array ); // you'll need to implement Comparator though 

for( int i = 0 ; i< 10 ;i++ ) {
    System.out.print( array[i] );
}

Here's the full working code:

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Comparator;
import static java.lang.System.out;

class IndexValue {
   final int i,v;

   public IndexValue( int i, int v ) {
       this.i = i;
       this.v = v;
   }
}
public class SortByIndex {
    public static void main( String [] args ) {

        Random random = new Random();

        int [] myArray = new int[100];
        IndexValue[] array = new IndexValue[myArray.length];

        // Fill the array 
        for( int i = 0 ; i < 100; i++ ) {
            myArray[i] = random.nextInt();
            array[i] = new IndexValue( i, myArray[i] );
        }

        // Sort it 
        Arrays.sort( array, new Comparator(){
            public int compare( IndexValue a, IndexValue b ){
                return a.v - b.v;
            }
        });

        // Print it
        out.println("Top:");
        for( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++ ) {
            out.println( String.format("array[%d]=%d",  array[i].i, array[i].v ));
        }

    }
}