Question

I have to put 3 values in correct order and print them out to the console.

A solution is to put them into an array and then sort them, but I remember (from school times) that there was faster to compare and order them, however I can’t find the correct comparison order.

Could you please show me how to compare 3 values with the minimum number of if statements?

Answer 1

There is no point in optimizing this. It will not gain any speed. O(n!) for 3 is still only 3*2 = 6 operations. Even O(2^n) is going to be 8. You could really do whatever it takes to sort these 3 values and not see a difference in performance.

edit

int a, b, c, min, max, med;//assume values are there for a b c
if( a > b ){
 if( a > c ){
  max = a;
  if( b > c ){
   med = b;
   min = c;
  }else{
   med = c;
   min = b;
  }
 }else{
  med = a;
  max = c;
  min = b;
 }
}else{
 if( b > c ){
  max = b;
  if( a > c ){
   med = a;
   min = c;
  }else{
   med = c;
   min = a;
  }
 }else{
  med = b;
  max = c;
  min = a;
 }
}