Fastest way to sort 3 values in Java [closed]

Answer 1

There is no point in optimizing this. It will not gain any speed. O(n!) for 3 is still only 3*2 = 6 operations. Even O(2^n) is going to be 8. You could really do whatever it takes to sort these 3 values and not see a difference in performance.

edit

int a, b, c, min, max, med;//assume values are there for a b c
if( a > b ){
 if( a > c ){
  max = a;
  if( b > c ){
   med = b;
   min = c;
  }else{
   med = c;
   min = b;
  }
 }else{
  med = a;
  max = c;
  min = b;
 }
}else{
 if( b > c ){
  max = b;
  if( a > c ){
   med = a;
   min = c;
  }else{
   med = c;
   min = a;
  }
 }else{
  med = b;
  max = c;
  min = a;
 }
}

Answer 2

bubble sort would have only 3 compare ops, and 6 assignments at worst case (it will be very similar if not identical to the behavior of insertion sort in this case):

if (a > b)
   swap(a,b)
if (b > c)
   swap(b,c)
if (a > b)
   swap(a,b)
print a,b,c

It cannot be done in less then 3 compares because there are n!=6 possible permutations for the array, and ceil(log_2(n!)) = 3

Answer 3

As far as i know, Java uses the Quicksort algorithm for sorting - an already optimized approach. No speed to harvest here!