sorthc, sorthcc#

Purpose#

Sorts a matrix of numeric or character data, or a string array.

Format#

y = sorthc(x, c)#

y = sorthcc(x, c)#

Parameters:

x (NxK matrix or string array) – data
c (scalar) – specifies one column of x to sort on

Returns:

y (NxK matrix or string array) – equal to x and sorted on the column c.

Examples#

let x[3, 3] = 4 7 3
            1 3 2
            3 4 8;

// Sort x based upon the values in the third column
y = sorthc(x, 3);

This produces y equal to:

3 2
7 3
4 8

Remarks#

These functions will sort the rows of a matrix or string array with respect to a specified column. That is, they will sort the elements of a column and will arrange all rows of the object in the same order as the sorted column.

sorthc() assumes that the column to sort on is numeric. sorthcc() assumes that the column to sort on contains character data.

If x is a matrix, it may contain both character and numeric data, but the sort column must be all of one type. Missing values will sort as if their value is below \(-\infty\).

The sort is in ascending order. This function uses the heap sort algorithm.

If you need to obtain the matrix sorted in descending order, you can use:

rev(sorthc(x, c))