sort

Sort array elements

Syntax

B = sort(A)

B = sort(A,dim)

B = sort(___,direction)

B = sort(___,Name,Value)

[B,I] = sort(___)

Description

B = sort(A) sorts the elements of A. By default, sort uses ascending sorted order.

• If A is a vector, then sort(A) sorts the vector elements.

• If A is a matrix, then sort(A) treats the columns of A as vectors and sorts each column.

• If A is a multidimensional array, then sort(A) operates along the first array dimension whose size does not equal 1, treating the elements as vectors.

B = sort(A,dim) returns the sorted elements of A along dimension dim. For example, if A is a matrix, then sort(A,2) sorts the elements of each row.

B = sort(___,direction) returns sorted elements of A in the order specified by direction using any of the previous syntaxes. 'ascend' indicates ascending order (the default) and 'descend' indicates descending order.

B = sort(___,Name,Value) specifies additional parameters for sorting. For example, sort(A,'ComparisonMethod','abs') sorts the elements of A by magnitude.

[B,I] = sort(___) also returns a collection of index vectors for any of the previous syntaxes. I is the same size as A and describes the arrangement of the elements of A into B along the sorted dimension. For example, if A is a vector, then B = A(I).

Examples

Sort Vector in Ascending Order

Create a row vector and sort its elements in ascending order.

A = [9 0 -7 5 3 8 -10 4 2];
B = sort(A)

B = 1×9

   -10    -7     0     2     3     4     5     8     9

Sort Matrix Rows in Ascending Order

Create a matrix and sort each of its rows in ascending order.

A = [3 6 5; 7 -2 4; 1 0 -9]

A = 3×3

     3     6     5
     7    -2     4
     1     0    -9

B = sort(A,2)

B = 3×3

     3     5     6
    -2     4     7
    -9     0     1

Sort Matrix Columns in Descending Order

Create a matrix and sort its columns in descending order.

A = [10 -12 4 8; 6 -9 8 0; 2 3 11 -2; 1 1 9 3]

A = 4×4

    10   -12     4     8
     6    -9     8     0
     2     3    11    -2
     1     1     9     3

B = sort(A,'descend')

B = 4×4

    10     3    11     8
     6     1     9     3
     2    -9     8     0
     1   -12     4    -2

Sort String Array

Starting in R2017a, you can create string arrays using double quotes, and sort them using the sort function. Sort strings in each column of a string array according to Unicode® dictionary order.

A = ["Santos","Burns"; ...
     "Jones","Morita"; ...
     "Petrov","Adams"];
B = sort(A)

B = 3×2 string
    "Jones"     "Adams" 
    "Petrov"    "Burns" 
    "Santos"    "Morita"

Sort the strings in each row.

B = sort(A,2)

B = 3×2 string
    "Burns"    "Santos"
    "Jones"    "Morita"
    "Adams"    "Petrov"

Sort and Index datetime Array

Create an array of datetime values and sort them in ascending order, that is, from the earliest to the latest calendar date.

ds = {'2012-12-22';'2063-04-05';'1992-01-12'};
A = datetime(ds,'Format','yyyy-MM-dd')

A = 3×1 datetime
   2012-12-22
   2063-04-05
   1992-01-12

[B,I] = sort(A)

B = 3×1 datetime
   1992-01-12
   2012-12-22
   2063-04-05

I = 3×1

     3
     1
     2

B lists the sorted dates and I contains the corresponding indices of A.

Access the sorted elements from the original array directly by using the index array I.

A(I)

ans = 3×1 datetime
   1992-01-12
   2012-12-22
   2063-04-05

Sort Vectors in Same Order

Create two row vectors that contain related data in the corresponding elements.

X = [3 6 4 2 1 5];
Y = ["yellow" "purple" "green" "orange" "red" "blue"];

First sort the vector X, then sort the vector Y in the same order as X.

[Xsorted,I] = sort(X)

Xsorted = 1×6

     1     2     3     4     5     6

I = 1×6

     5     4     1     3     6     2

Ysorted = Y(I)

Ysorted = 1×6 string
    "red"    "orange"    "yellow"    "green"    "blue"    "purple"

Sort 3-D Array

Create a 2-by-2-by-2 array and sort its elements in ascending order along the third dimension.

A(:,:,1) = [2 3; 1 6];
A(:,:,2) = [-1 9; 0 12];
A

A = 
A(:,:,1) =

     2     3
     1     6


A(:,:,2) =

    -1     9
     0    12

B = sort(A,3)

B = 
B(:,:,1) =

    -1     3
     0     6


B(:,:,2) =

     2     9
     1    12

Use A(:), the column representation of A, to sort all of the elements of A.

B = sort(A(:))

B = 8×1

    -1
     0
     1
     2
     3
     6
     9
    12

Complex Vector

Sort the elements of a complex vector by their real parts. By default, the sort function sorts complex values by their magnitude, and breaks ties using phase angles. Specify the value of 'ComparisonMethod' as 'real' to instead sort complex values by their real parts. For elements with equal real parts, sort breaks the tie based on their imaginary parts.

A = [1+2i 3+1i 1i 0 -1i];
B = sort(A,'ComparisonMethod','real')

B = 1×5 complex

   0.0000 - 1.0000i   0.0000 + 0.0000i   0.0000 + 1.0000i   1.0000 + 2.0000i   3.0000 + 1.0000i

Input Arguments

A — Input array

vector | matrix | multidimensional array

Input array, specified as a vector, matrix, or multidimensional array.

• If A is a scalar, then sort(A) returns A.

• If A is complex, then by default, sort sorts the elements by magnitude. If more than one element has equal magnitude, then the elements are sorted by phase angle on the interval (−π, π].

• If A is a cell array of character vectors or a string array, then sort(A) sorts the elements according to the code order for the UTF-16 character encoding scheme. The sort is case-sensitive. For more information on sorting character and string arrays, see Sort Order for Character and String Arrays.

• If A is a string array, then sort reorders the elements of the array, but does not reorder characters within the strings.

• If A is a categorical array, then the sorting order is based on the category order returned by categories(A).

Data Types: double | single | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64 | logical | char | string | cell | categorical | datetime | duration
Complex Number Support: Yes

dim — Dimension to operate along

positive integer scalar

Dimension to operate along, specified as a positive integer scalar. If no value is specified, then the default is the first array dimension whose size does not equal 1.

• Consider a matrix A. sort(A,1) sorts the elements in the columns of A.

  

• sort(A,2) sorts the elements in the rows of A.

  

sort returns A if dim is greater than ndims(A). dim is not supported when A is a cell array, that is, sort only operates along the first array dimension whose size does not equal 1.

Data Types: double | single | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

direction — Sorting direction

'ascend' (default) | 'descend'

Sorting direction, specified as 'ascend' or 'descend'. direction is not supported when A is a cell array, that is, sort only sorts in ascending order.

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: sort(A,'MissingPlacement','last')

MissingPlacement — Placement of missing values

'auto' (default) | 'first' | 'last'

Placement of missing values (NaN, NaT, <undefined>, and missing) specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'MissingPlacement' and one of the following:

• 'auto' — Missing elements are placed last for ascending order and first for descending order.

• 'first' — Missing elements are placed first.

• 'last' — Missing elements are placed last.

ComparisonMethod — Element comparison method

'auto' (default) | 'real' | 'abs'

Element comparison method for numeric input, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'ComparisonMethod' and one of the following:

• 'auto' — Sort A by real(A) when A is real, and sort by abs(A) when A is complex.

• 'real' — Sort A by real(A) when A is real or complex. If A has elements with equal real parts, then use imag(A) to break ties.

• 'abs' — Sort A by abs(A) when A is real or complex. If A has elements with equal magnitude, then use angle(A) in the interval (-π,π] to break ties.

Output Arguments

B — Sorted array

vector | matrix | multidimensional array

Sorted array, returned as a vector, matrix, or multidimensional array. B is the same size and type as A.

Data Types: double | single | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64 | logical | char | string | cell | categorical | datetime | duration

I — Sort index

vector | matrix | multidimensional array

Sort index, returned as a vector, matrix, or multidimensional array. I is the same size as A. The index vectors are oriented along the same dimension that sort operates on. For example, if A is a 2-by-3 matrix, then [B,I] = sort(A,2) sorts the elements in each row of A. The output I is a collection of 1-by-3 row index vectors describing the rearrangement of each row of A.

The sort function uses a stable sorting algorithm. So, when the input contains repeated values, the sort index preserves the original order from the input, regardless of sorting direction. For example, if A = [1 2 1 2], then [Ba,Ia] = sort(A,'ascend') returns the sort index Ia = [1 3 2 4] and [Bd,Id] = sort(A,'descend') returns the sort index Id = [2 4 1 3].

More About

Sort Order for Character and String Arrays

MATLAB^® stores characters as Unicode^® using the UTF-16 character encoding scheme. Character and string arrays are sorted according to the UTF-16 code point order. For the characters that are also the ASCII characters, this order means that uppercase letters come before lowercase letters. Digits and some punctuation also come before letters.

Tips

• The sortrows function provides additional flexibility for subsorting over multiple columns of matrix or table inputs.

• The sort function and the relational operators use different orderings for complex numbers. For more information, see Relational Operations.

Extended Capabilities

Tall Arrays

Calculate with arrays that have more rows than fit in memory.

This function supports tall arrays with the limitations:

• You must specify the dimension to sort, as in sort(X,dim).

• Sorting the tall dimension, as in sort(X,1), is only supported for column vectors.

For more information, see Tall Arrays.

C/C++ Code Generation

Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• For input argument A:

  • String input array is not supported.

  • If the input array is a cell array of character vectors and variable sizing is disabled, all character vector elements must be the same length.

  • In the generated code, the input array remains complex, even if all of its elements have zero-valued imaginary parts. Under these circumstances, the results produced by the generated code might differ from those produced by MATLAB. See Code Generation for Complex Data with Zero-Valued Imaginary Parts (MATLAB Coder).

• If used, the direction argument must be constant at code generation time.

GPU Code Generation

Generate CUDA® code for NVIDIA® GPUs using GPU Coder™.

Refer to the usage notes and limitations in the C/C++ Code Generation section. The same usage notes and limitations apply to GPU code generation.

Thread-Based Environment

Run code in the background using MATLAB® backgroundPool or accelerate code with Parallel Computing Toolbox™ ThreadPool.

The sort function fully supports thread-based environments. For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions in Thread-Based Environment.

GPU Arrays

Accelerate code by running on a graphics processing unit (GPU) using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

The sort function fully supports GPU arrays. To run the function on a GPU, specify the input data as a gpuArray (Parallel Computing Toolbox). For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions on a GPU (Parallel Computing Toolbox).

Distributed Arrays

Partition large arrays across the combined memory of your cluster using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

The sort function supports distributed arrays with these usage notes and limitations:

• Table, timetable, and datetime inputs are not supported.

For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions with Distributed Arrays (Parallel Computing Toolbox).

Version History

Introduced before R2006a

R2026a: Improved performance for 8-bit and 16-bit integer data

The sort function shows improved performance when sorting the elements in an array of type int8, uint8, int16, or uint16. The improvement is most noticeable when the number of elements to sort is large.

For example, this code sorts a 100,000,000-element column vector of type int8. The code is about 5.0x faster than in the previous release.

function timingTest
A = randi(intmax("int8"),[1e8 1],"int8");
S = @() sort(A);
t = timeit(S)
end

The approximate execution times are:

R2025b: 1.06 s

R2026a: 0.21 s

The code was timed on a Windows^® 11, AMD EPYC™ 74F3 24-Core Processor @ 3.19 GHz test system by calling the timingTest function.