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Java Program to Sort an array in wave form

Given an unsorted array of integers, sort the array into a wave-like array. An array ‘arr[0..n-1]’ is sorted in wave form if arr[0] >= arr[1] <= arr[2] >= arr[3] <= arr[4] >= …..

Examples: 



 Input:  arr[] = {10, 5, 6, 3, 2, 20, 100, 80}
 Output: arr[] = {10, 5, 6, 2, 20, 3, 100, 80} OR
                 {20, 5, 10, 2, 80, 6, 100, 3} OR
                 any other array that is in wave form

 Input:  arr[] = {20, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2}
 Output: arr[] = {20, 8, 10, 4, 6, 2} OR
                 {10, 8, 20, 2, 6, 4} OR
                 any other array that is in wave form

 Input:  arr[] = {2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20}
 Output: arr[] = {4, 2, 8, 6, 20, 10} OR
                 any other array that is in wave form

 Input:  arr[] = {3, 6, 5, 10, 7, 20}
 Output: arr[] = {6, 3, 10, 5, 20, 7} OR
                 any other array that is in wave form
 

A Simple Solution is to use sorting. First sort the input array, then swap all adjacent elements.
For example, let the input array be {3, 6, 5, 10, 7, 20}. After sorting, we get {3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 20}. After swapping adjacent elements, we get {5, 3, 7, 6, 20, 10}. 

Below are implementations of this simple approach. 






// Java implementation of naive method for sorting
// an array in wave form.
import java.util.*;
  
class SortWave
{
    // A utility method to swap two numbers.
    void swap(int arr[], int a, int b)
    {
        int temp = arr[a];
        arr[a] = arr[b];
        arr[b] = temp;
    }
  
    // This function sorts arr[0..n-1] in wave form, i.e.,
    // arr[0] >= arr[1] <= arr[2] >= arr[3] <= arr[4]..
    void sortInWave(int arr[], int n)
    {
        // Sort the input array
        Arrays.sort(arr);
  
        // Swap adjacent elements
        for (int i=0; i<n-1; i += 2)
            swap(arr, i, i+1);
    }
  
    // Driver method
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        SortWave ob = new SortWave();
        int arr[] = {10, 90, 49, 2, 1, 5, 23};
        int n = arr.length;
        ob.sortInWave(arr, n);
        for (int i : arr)
            System.out.print(i + " ");
    }
}
/*This code is contributed by Rajat Mishra*/

Output
2 1 10 5 49 23 90 

Time complexity: O(n Log n), if a O(nLogn) sorting algorithm like Merge Sort, Heap Sort, .. etc is used.
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

Another approach: 
This can be done in O(n) time by doing a single traversal of given array. The idea is based on the fact that if we make sure that all even-positioned (at index 0, 2, 4, ..) elements are greater than their adjacent odd elements, we don’t need to worry about odd positioned elements.

The following are simple steps. 

Below are implementations of the above simple algorithm. 




// A O(n) Java program to sort an input array in wave form
import java.util.*;
  
class SortWave
{
    // A utility method to swap two numbers.
    void swap(int arr[], int a, int b)
    {
        int temp = arr[a];
        arr[a] = arr[b];
        arr[b] = temp;
    }
  
    // This function sorts arr[0..n-1] in wave form, i.e.,
    // arr[0] >= arr[1] <= arr[2] >= arr[3] <= arr[4]....
    void sortInWave(int arr[], int n)
    {
        // Traverse all even elements
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i+=2)
        {
            // If current even element is smaller
            // than previous
            if (i>0 && arr[i-1] > arr[i] )
                swap(arr, i-1, i);
  
            // If current even element is smaller
            // than next
            if (i<n-1 && arr[i] < arr[i+1] )
                swap(arr, i, i + 1);
        }
    }
  
    // Driver program to test above function
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        SortWave ob = new SortWave();
        int arr[] = {10, 90, 49, 2, 1, 5, 23};
        int n = arr.length;
        ob.sortInWave(arr, n);
        for (int i : arr)
            System.out.print(i+" ");
    }
}
/*This code is contributed by Rajat Mishra*/

Output
90 10 49 1 5 2 23 

Time complexity: O(n)
Auxiliary space: O(1)

Please refer complete article on Sort an array in wave form for more details!


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