Getting Top 10 Highest Numbers From Array?

Question

I am having a bit of a issue. I have an NSMutableDictionary with 10 NSMutableArrays in it. Each array has somewhere between 0-10 numbers which could each be any integer, e.g. 12

Answer 1

Walk through the arrays creating an object/structure for each element, consisting of the numeric "key" value and the "path" (array indices) to the element. Sort the objects/structures so created. (This is referred to as a "tag sort".)

The other approach, if you only need the top N values (where N << total number of entries) is to create an array of N elements, consisting of the above key and path info. Scan through all the arrays and compare each array element to the smallest key of the N currently stored. If you find an element larger than the smallest stored, replace the smallest stored and sort the N elements to select a new smallest stored.