Minimalistic Solution Here is a “minimal” solution. class SortedArrayList<T> extends ArrayList<T> { @SuppressWarnings(“unchecked”) public void insertSorted(T value) { add(value); Comparable<T> cmp = (Comparable<T>) value; for (int i = size()-1; i > 0 && cmp.compareTo(get(i-1)) < 0; i–) Collections.swap(this, i, i-1); } } The insert runs in linear time, but that would be what you would … Read more
Yes, the intention of the manual is indeed to guarantee that sorted is stable and indeed that it uses exactly the same algorithm as the sort method. I do realize that the docs aren’t 100% clear about this identity; doc patches are always happily accepted!
If you are using numpy, you have the argsort() function available: >>> import numpy >>> numpy.argsort(myList) array([0, 1, 2, 4, 3]) http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.argsort.html This returns the arguments that would sort the array or list.