Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
A decision I often run into is when to sort a list of items. When an item is added, keeping the list sorted at all times, or when the list is accessed.
Is there a best practice for better performance, or is it just the matter of saying: if the list is mostly accessed, sort it when it is changed or vice versa.
Sorting the list at every acccess is a bad idea. You have to have a flag which you set when the collection is modified. Only if this flag is set, you need to sort and then reset the flag.
But the best is if you have a data structure which is per definition always sorted. That means, if you insert a new element, the element is automatically inserted at the right index, thus keeping the collection sorted.
I don’t know which platform / framework you are using. I know .NET provides a SortedList class which manages that kind of insertion-sort algorithm for you.