Question

So for a step size of 1, I want the array:

{1, 2, 3, 4}

To become:

{4, 1, 2, 3}

And for a step of size 2 the result will be:

{3, 4, 1, 2}

This is the code I’m using now:

private static int[] shiftArray(int[] array, int stepSize) {
  if (stepSize == 0)
     return array;

  int shiftStep = (stepSize > array.length ? stepSize % array.length : stepSize);

  int[] array2 = new int[array.length];
  boolean safe = false;
  for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
     if (safe) {
        array2[i] = array[i - shiftStep];
     }
     else {
        array2[i] = array[array.length - shiftStep + i];
        safe = (i+1) - shiftStep >= 0;
     }
  }
  return array2;
}

The code is working great, but is it possible to achieve this without creating a helper array (which is array2 in the code above)?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can do it without creating as big an array:

// void return type as it shifts in-place
private static void shiftArray(int[] array, int stepSize) {
    // TODO: Cope with negative step sizes etc
    int[] tmp = new int[stepSize];
    System.arraycopy(array, array.length - stepSize, tmp, 0, stepSize);
    System.arraycopy(array, 0, array, stepSize, array.Length - stepSize);
    System.arraycopy(tmp, 0, array, 0, stepSize);
}

So for a 100,000 array and a step size of 10, it creates a 10-element array, copies the last 10 elements into it, copies the first 999,990 elements to be later, then copies from the temporary array back to the start of the array.