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

Maximum number of inversions possible for a list of size n could be generalized by an expression:

maxPossibleInversions = (n * (n-1) ) / 2

So for an array of size 6 maximum possible inversions will equal 15.

To achieve a complexity of n logn we could piggy back the inversion algorithm on merge sort.

Here are the generalized steps:

• Split the array into two
• Call the mergeSort routine. If the element in the left subarray is greater than the element in right sub array make inversionCount += leftSubArray.length

That's it!

This is a simple example, I made using Javascript:

var arr = [6,5,4,3,2,1]; // Sample input array

var inversionCount = 0;

function mergeSort(arr) {
    if(arr.length == 1)
        return arr;

    if(arr.length > 1) {
        let breakpoint = Math.ceil((arr.length/2));
        // Left list starts with 0, breakpoint-1
        let leftList = arr.slice(0,breakpoint);
        // Right list starts with breakpoint, length-1
        let rightList = arr.slice(breakpoint,arr.length);

        // Make a recursive call
        leftList = mergeSort(leftList);
        rightList = mergeSort(rightList);

        var a = merge(leftList,rightList);
        return a;
    }
}

function merge(leftList,rightList) {
    let result = [];
    while(leftList.length && rightList.length) {
        /**
         * The shift() method removes the first element from an array
         * and returns that element. This method changes the length
         * of the array.
         */
        if(leftList[0] <= rightList[0]) {
            result.push(leftList.shift());
        }else{
            inversionCount += leftList.length;
            result.push(rightList.shift());
        }
    }

    while(leftList.length)
        result.push(leftList.shift());

    while(rightList.length)
        result.push(rightList.shift());

    console.log(result);
    return result;
}

mergeSort(arr);
console.log('Number of inversions: ' + inversionCount);