Alphabetizing/sorting an array whats the best way

[welchs101]

Hi,

I have an array of strings. Its an array of file names.

I have about 376 entries in the array.

I want to alphabetize the arrary but i am not sure the best way.

Is the best way
1)to save the array to a dummy sheet in excel
2) sort in excel
3) read into array from excel

Or is there a better way? Also, if this is the best way can someone point me in the right direction as to how to do this......efficiently.

[welchs101]

does any one know the best way?

is it faster to put array contents in sheet, then sort, then read contents from sheet back into array or is it faster to sort just the array itself?

Please let me know?

[DonkeyOte]

see: http://www.cpearson.com/excel/QSort.htm

[welchs101]

thanks for the link.

What i could not find in the link is which way i should go. The link says that if the worksheet is protected then use the qsort..........my worksheet is not protected and i can store stuff to do the sort..........but again it does not address the issue of which one is faster.

[shg]

For a few hundred elements, the time difference would be negligible.

Greetings, DO, long time no see!

[Colin Legg]

Personally, I would sort the array purely within VBA. There are lots of different sorting algorithms available; for what you describe I would use a QuickSort algorithm. For an array of this size, it will be extremely fast.

[shg]

I agree with Colin; I would only ever copy an array to a worksheet to sort a multi-column array by multiple fields.

[welchs101]

ok.....do you have any code for a good quicksort.......i will try it

[shg]

I do, but Saturday is my InsertionSort day:

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The (1D) array is sorted in situ, e.g.,

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