Sorting an array in descending order in Ruby

Question

I have an array of hashes like following

[
  { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 2 },
  { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 3 },
  { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 5 },
]

I am trying to sort above array in descending order according to the value of :bar in each hash.

I am using sort_by like following to sort above array.

a.sort_by { |h| h[:bar] }

However above sorts the array in ascending order. How do I make it sort in descending order?

One solution was to do following:

a.sort_by { |h| -h[:bar] }

But that negative sign does not seem appropriate. Any views?

Answer 1

You could do:

a.sort{|a,b| b[:bar] <=> a[:bar]}

Answer 2

Just a quick thing, that denotes the intent of descending order.

descending = -1
a.sort_by { |h| h[:bar] * descending }

(Will think of a better way in the mean time) ;)

---

a.sort_by { |h| h[:bar] }.reverse!

Answer 3

Regarding the benchmark suite mentioned... these results also hold for sorted arrays. sort_by / reverse it is :)

Eg:

# foo.rb
require 'benchmark'

NUM_RUNS = 1000

# arr = []
arr1 = 3000.times.map { { num: rand(1000) } }
arr2 = 3000.times.map { |n| { num: n } }.reverse

Benchmark.bm(20) do |x|
  { 'randomized'     => arr1,
    'sorted'         => arr2 }.each do |label, arr|
    puts '---------------------------------------------------'
    puts label

    x.report('sort_by / reverse') {
      NUM_RUNS.times { arr.sort_by { |h| h[:num] }.reverse }
    }
    x.report('sort_by -') {
      NUM_RUNS.times { arr.sort_by { |h| -h[:num] } }
    }
  end
end

And the results:

$: ruby foo.rb
                           user     system      total        real
---------------------------------------------------
randomized
sort_by / reverse      1.680000   0.010000   1.690000 (  1.682051)
sort_by -              1.830000   0.000000   1.830000 (  1.830359)
---------------------------------------------------
sorted
sort_by / reverse      0.400000   0.000000   0.400000 (  0.402990)
sort_by -              0.500000   0.000000   0.500000 (  0.499350)

Answer 4

What about:

 a.sort {|x,y| y[:bar]<=>x[:bar]}

---

It works!!

irb
>> a = [
?>   { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 2 },
?>   { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 3 },
?>   { :foo => 'foo', :bar => 5 },
?> ]
=> [{:bar=>2, :foo=>"foo"}, {:bar=>3, :foo=>"foo"}, {:bar=>5, :foo=>"foo"}]

>>  a.sort {|x,y| y[:bar]<=>x[:bar]}
=> [{:bar=>5, :foo=>"foo"}, {:bar=>3, :foo=>"foo"}, {:bar=>2, :foo=>"foo"}]

Answer 5

I see that we have (beside others) basically two options:

a.sort_by { |h| -h[:bar] }

and

a.sort_by { |h| h[:bar] }.reverse

While both ways give you the same result when your sorting key is unique, keep in mind that the reverse way will reverse the order of keys that are equal.

Example:

a = [{foo: 1, bar: 1},{foo: 2,bar: 1}]
a.sort_by {|h| -h[:bar]}
 => [{:foo=>1, :bar=>1}, {:foo=>2, :bar=>1}]
a.sort_by {|h| h[:bar]}.reverse
 => [{:foo=>2, :bar=>1}, {:foo=>1, :bar=>1}]

While you often don't need to care about this, sometimes you do. To avoid such behavior you could introduce a second sorting key (that for sure needs to be unique at least for all items that have the same sorting key):

a.sort_by {|h| [-h[:bar],-h[:foo]]}
 => [{:foo=>2, :bar=>1}, {:foo=>1, :bar=>1}]
a.sort_by {|h| [h[:bar],h[:foo]]}.reverse
 => [{:foo=>2, :bar=>1}, {:foo=>1, :bar=>1}]

Answer 6

It's always enlightening to do a benchmark on the various suggested answers. Here's what I found out:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'benchmark'

ary = []
1000.times { 
  ary << {:bar => rand(1000)} 
}

n = 500
Benchmark.bm(20) do |x|
  x.report("sort")               { n.times { ary.sort{ |a,b| b[:bar] <=> a[:bar] } } }
  x.report("sort reverse")       { n.times { ary.sort{ |a,b| a[:bar] <=> b[:bar] }.reverse } }
  x.report("sort_by -a[:bar]")   { n.times { ary.sort_by{ |a| -a[:bar] } } }
  x.report("sort_by a[:bar]*-1") { n.times { ary.sort_by{ |a| a[:bar]*-1 } } }
  x.report("sort_by.reverse!")   { n.times { ary.sort_by{ |a| a[:bar] }.reverse } }
end

                          user     system      total        real
sort                  3.960000   0.010000   3.970000 (  3.990886)
sort reverse          4.040000   0.000000   4.040000 (  4.038849)
sort_by -a[:bar]      0.690000   0.000000   0.690000 (  0.692080)
sort_by a[:bar]*-1    0.700000   0.000000   0.700000 (  0.699735)
sort_by.reverse!      0.650000   0.000000   0.650000 (  0.654447)

I think it's interesting that @Pablo's sort_by{...}.reverse! is fastest. Before running the test I thought it would be slower than "-a[:bar]" but negating the value turns out to take longer than it does to reverse the entire array in one pass. It's not much of a difference, but every little speed-up helps.

---

Please note that these results are different in Ruby 1.9

Here are results for Ruby 1.9.3p194 (2012-04-20 revision 35410) [x86_64-darwin10.8.0]:

                           user     system      total        real
sort                   1.340000   0.010000   1.350000 (  1.346331)
sort reverse           1.300000   0.000000   1.300000 (  1.310446)
sort_by -a[:bar]       0.430000   0.000000   0.430000 (  0.429606)
sort_by a[:bar]*-1     0.420000   0.000000   0.420000 (  0.414383)
sort_by.reverse!       0.400000   0.000000   0.400000 (  0.401275)

These are on an old MacBook Pro. Newer, or faster machines, will have lower values, but the relative differences will remain.

---

Here's a bit updated version on newer hardware and the 2.1.1 version of Ruby:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'benchmark'

puts "Running Ruby #{RUBY_VERSION}"

ary = []
1000.times {
  ary << {:bar => rand(1000)}
}

n = 500

puts "n=#{n}"
Benchmark.bm(20) do |x|
  x.report("sort")               { n.times { ary.dup.sort{ |a,b| b[:bar] <=> a[:bar] } } }
  x.report("sort reverse")       { n.times { ary.dup.sort{ |a,b| a[:bar] <=> b[:bar] }.reverse } }
  x.report("sort_by -a[:bar]")   { n.times { ary.dup.sort_by{ |a| -a[:bar] } } }
  x.report("sort_by a[:bar]*-1") { n.times { ary.dup.sort_by{ |a| a[:bar]*-1 } } }
  x.report("sort_by.reverse")    { n.times { ary.dup.sort_by{ |a| a[:bar] }.reverse } }
  x.report("sort_by.reverse!")   { n.times { ary.dup.sort_by{ |a| a[:bar] }.reverse! } }
end

# >> Running Ruby 2.1.1
# >> n=500
# >>                            user     system      total        real
# >> sort                   0.670000   0.000000   0.670000 (  0.667754)
# >> sort reverse           0.650000   0.000000   0.650000 (  0.655582)
# >> sort_by -a[:bar]       0.260000   0.010000   0.270000 (  0.255919)
# >> sort_by a[:bar]*-1     0.250000   0.000000   0.250000 (  0.258924)
# >> sort_by.reverse        0.250000   0.000000   0.250000 (  0.245179)
# >> sort_by.reverse!       0.240000   0.000000   0.240000 (  0.242340)

---

New results running the above code using Ruby 2.2.1 on a more recent Macbook Pro. Again, the exact numbers aren't important, it's their relationships:

Running Ruby 2.2.1
n=500
                           user     system      total        real
sort                   0.650000   0.000000   0.650000 (  0.653191)
sort reverse           0.650000   0.000000   0.650000 (  0.648761)
sort_by -a[:bar]       0.240000   0.010000   0.250000 (  0.245193)
sort_by a[:bar]*-1     0.240000   0.000000   0.240000 (  0.240541)
sort_by.reverse        0.230000   0.000000   0.230000 (  0.228571)
sort_by.reverse!       0.230000   0.000000   0.230000 (  0.230040)