C++ sorting and keeping track of indexes

Question

Using C++, and hopefully the standard library, I want to sort a sequence of samples in ascending order, but I also want to remember the original indexes of the new samples.<

Answer 1

Well, my solution uses residue technique. We can place the values under sorting in the upper 2 bytes and the indices of the elements - in the lower 2 bytes:

int myints[] = {32,71,12,45,26,80,53,33};

for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++)
   myints[i] = myints[i]*(1 << 16) + i;

Then sort the array myints as usual:

std::vector<int> myvector(myints, myints+8);
sort(myvector.begin(), myvector.begin()+8, std::less<int>());

After that you can access the elements' indices via residuum. The following code prints the indices of the values sorted in the ascending order:

for (std::vector<int>::iterator it = myvector.begin(); it != myvector.end(); ++it)
   std::cout << ' ' << (*it)%(1 << 16);

Of course, this technique works only for the relatively small values in the original array myints (i.e. those which can fit into upper 2 bytes of int). But it has additional benefit of distinguishing identical values of myints: their indices will be printed in the right order.

Answer 2

There are many ways. A rather simple solution is to use a 2D vector.

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;

int main() {
 vector<vector<double>> val_and_id;
 val_and_id.resize(5);
 for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
   val_and_id[i].resize(2); // one to store value, the other for index.
 }
 // Store value in dimension 1, and index in the other:
 // say values are 5,4,7,1,3.
 val_and_id[0][0] = 5.0;
 val_and_id[1][0] = 4.0;
 val_and_id[2][0] = 7.0;
 val_and_id[3][0] = 1.0;
 val_and_id[4][0] = 3.0;

 val_and_id[0][1] = 0.0;
 val_and_id[1][1] = 1.0;
 val_and_id[2][1] = 2.0;
 val_and_id[3][1] = 3.0;
 val_and_id[4][1] = 4.0;

 sort(val_and_id.begin(), val_and_id.end());
 // display them:
 cout << "Index \t" << "Value \n";
 for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
  cout << val_and_id[i][1] << "\t" << val_and_id[i][0] << "\n";
 }
 return 0;
}

Here is the output:

   Index   Value
   3       1
   4       3
   1       4
   0       5
   2       7

Answer 3

Using C++ 11 lambdas:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <numeric>      // std::iota
#include <algorithm>    // std::sort, std::stable_sort

using namespace std;

template <typename T>
vector<size_t> sort_indexes(const vector<T> &v) {

  // initialize original index locations
  vector<size_t> idx(v.size());
  iota(idx.begin(), idx.end(), 0);

  // sort indexes based on comparing values in v
  // using std::stable_sort instead of std::sort
  // to avoid unnecessary index re-orderings
  // when v contains elements of equal values 
  stable_sort(idx.begin(), idx.end(),
       [&v](size_t i1, size_t i2) {return v[i1] < v[i2];});

  return idx;
}

Now you can use the returned index vector in iterations such as

for (auto i: sort_indexes(v)) {
  cout << v[i] << endl;
}

You can also choose to supply your original index vector, sort function, comparator, or automatically reorder v in the sort_indexes function using an extra vector.

Answer 4

I came across this question, and figured out sorting the iterators directly would be a way to sort the values and keep track of indices; There is no need to define an extra container of pairs of ( value, index ) which is helpful when the values are large objects; The iterators provides the access to both the value and the index:

/*
 * a function object that allows to compare
 * the iterators by the value they point to
 */
template < class RAIter, class Compare >
class IterSortComp
{
    public:
        IterSortComp ( Compare comp ): m_comp ( comp ) { }
        inline bool operator( ) ( const RAIter & i, const RAIter & j ) const
        {
            return m_comp ( * i, * j );
        }
    private:
        const Compare m_comp;
};

template <class INIter, class RAIter, class Compare>
void itersort ( INIter first, INIter last, std::vector < RAIter > & idx, Compare comp )
{ 
    idx.resize ( std::distance ( first, last ) );
    for ( typename std::vector < RAIter >::iterator j = idx.begin( ); first != last; ++ j, ++ first )
        * j = first;

    std::sort ( idx.begin( ), idx.end( ), IterSortComp< RAIter, Compare > ( comp ) );
}

as for the usage example:

std::vector < int > A ( n );

// populate A with some random values
std::generate ( A.begin( ), A.end( ), rand );

std::vector < std::vector < int >::const_iterator > idx;
itersort ( A.begin( ), A.end( ), idx, std::less < int > ( ) );

now, for example, the 5th smallest element in the sorted vector would have value **idx[ 5 ] and its index in the original vector would be distance( A.begin( ), *idx[ 5 ] ) or simply *idx[ 5 ] - A.begin( ).

Answer 5

You could sort std::pair instead of just ints - first int is original data, second int is original index. Then supply a comparator that only sorts on the first int. Example:

Your problem instance: v = [5 7 8]
New problem instance: v_prime = [<5,0>, <8,1>, <7,2>]

Sort the new problem instance using a comparator like:

typedef std::pair<int,int> mypair;
bool comparator ( const mypair& l, const mypair& r)
   { return l.first < r.first; }
// forgetting the syntax here but intent is clear enough

The result of std::sort on v_prime, using that comparator, should be:

v_prime = [<5,0>, <7,2>, <8,1>]

You can peel out the indices by walking the vector, grabbing .second from each std::pair.

Answer 6

For this type of question Store the orignal array data into a new data and then binary search the first element of the sorted array into the duplicated array and that indice should be stored into a vector or array.

input array=>a
duplicate array=>b
vector=>c(Stores the indices(position) of the orignal array
Syntax:
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
c.push_back(binarysearch(b,n,a[i]));`

Here binarysearch is a function which takes the array,size of array,searching item and would return the position of the searched item