Golang Program To Sort An Array

In this tutorial, we will see to write a go language program to sort an array using three different methods.

Sort An Array Of Integers Using User-Defined Functions

The following code illustrates how we can sort an array of elements in golang using user-defined functions.

Algorithm

Step 1 − Importing the fmt package.

Step 2 − Defining a function named sortArray() which will sort the given array.

Step 3 − Pass the array to be sorted as an argument to this function. This function uses two for loops to iterate over the array.

Step 4 − If the current element of the array is greater than the previous element then we need to switch their positions.

Step 5 − Repeat the process until the for loop iterates to all the array elements. Return the new array thus formed.

Step 6 − Start the main function.

Step 7 − Initialize an array of integers and print it on the screen.

Step 8 − Call the sortArray() function.

Step 9 − Store the array returned by the function in a variable called result and print it on the screen using fmt.Println() function.

Example

package main
import "fmt"

// defining a sortArray function to sort the given array
func sortArray(arr [5]int) [5]int {
   for i := 0; i <= len(arr)-1; i++ {
      for j := 0; j < len(arr)-1-i; j++ {
         if arr[j] > arr[j+1] {
            arr[j], arr[j+1] = arr[j+1], arr[j]
         }
      }
   }
   return arr
}
func main() {
   arr := [5]int{50, 30, 20, 10, 40}
   fmt.Println("The unsorted array entered is:", arr)
   result := sortArray(arr)
   fmt.Println("The sorted array is:", result)
   fmt.Println()
   arr = [5]int{2, 8, 6, 3, 1}
   fmt.Println("The unsorted array entered is:", arr)
   result = sortArray(arr)
   fmt.Println("The sorted array is:", result)
}

Output

The unsorted array entered is: [50 30 20 10 40]
The sorted array is: [10 20 30 40 50]

The unsorted array entered is: [2 8 6 3 1]
The sorted array is: [1 2 3 6 8]

Sort An Array Of Strings In Ascending Order Using A Pre-Defined Function

The following code illustrates to sort an array of strings in the Go programming language

Syntax

Sort.Strings(strs)

The Strings() function is present in the sort package and it takes the array of strings to be sorted as an argument and returns the sorted string.

Algorithm

Step 1 − Import the fmt and sort packages.

Step 2 − Start the main() function.

Step 3 − Initialize an array of strings and store values to it. Print the unsorted array on the screen.

Step 4 − Now we need to call the function strings present in the sort package by passing the array to be sorted as an argument to the function.

Step 5 − The strs array is now sorted. We can print it on the screen using fmt.Println() function.

Example

package main
import (
   "fmt"
   "sort"
)
func main() {
   var strs = []string{"c", "a", "b"}
   fmt.Println("Unsorted array of strings is", strs)
   sort.Strings(strs)
   fmt.Println("The above array is sorted and the result is:", strs)
}

Output

Unsorted array of strings is [c a b]
The above array is sorted and the result is: [a b c]

Conclusion

We have successfully compiled and executed a go language program to sort an array along with the examples.