What types of sort performed by sort method of Array class ?

Question

I use normal bubble sort and method Array.sort() to sort some given data of an Array and then count the time.But Array.sort() method takes more time then normal bubble sort.
Can anybody tell me what types of sort performed by sort method of Array class?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure that in eariler versions (1.2, 1.3
maybe?) List.sort's docs said it used quicksort. Or I
might be on crack.You are actually both correct, and wrong :)
From the documentation of the sort methods hasn't changed in 1.2 -> 1.4 (as far as I can notice), and the documentation for sort(Object[]) says (taken from JDK 1.2 docs):
"This sort is guaranteed to be stable: equal elements will not be reordered as a result of the sort.
The sorting algorithm is a modified mergesort (in which the merge is omitted if the highest element in the low sublist is less than the lowest element in the high sublist). This algorithm offers guaranteed n*log(n) performance, and can approach linear performance on nearly sorted lists."
So, how could you be correct? The documentation for e.g. sort(int[]) (and all other primities) says:
"Sorts the specified array of ints into ascending numerical order. The sorting algorithm is a tuned quicksort, adapted from Jon L. Bentley and M. Douglas McIlroy's "Engineering a Sort Function", Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 23(11) P. 1249-1265 (November 1993). This algorithm offers n*log(n) performance on many data sets that cause other quicksorts to degrade to quadratic performance."
Your memory serves you well :)
/Kaj