Shuffle an Array or a List - Algorithm in Java

출처(source) : http://www.vogella.de/articles/JavaAlgorithmsShuffle/article.html

Shuffle an Array or a List - Algorithm in Java

Lars Vogel

Version 0.1

Copyright © 2009 Lars Vogel

17.05.2009

Revision History
Revision 0.1	17.05.2009	Lars Vogel
Created

Abstract

This article describes how to shuffle the content of an array or a list in Java. After the shuffle the elements in the array or the list are randomly sorted.

---

Table of Contents

1. Shuffle an array with the Collections framework

2. Implementation in Java

3. Thank you

4. Questions and Discussion

5. Links and Literature

5.1. Source Code

5.2. General

1. Shuffle an array with the Collections framework

An array or an java.util.list contains a sorted list of values. Shuffling an array or a list means that you are randomly re-arranging the content of that structure. Have you wondered how you could shuffle an array or a list without the collection framework? This article demonstrates how the shuffling works so that you can learn how the standard libraries might do this.

Tip

If you only interested in shuffling with the collections framework you should of course use the standard Java. Use Collections.shuffle(list) to shuffle a list with the standard Java library or Collections.shuffle(Arrays.asList(a)) to shuffle an array a.

The approach works independent of the content of the array or the list.

The shuffle is random as the algorithm by selecting uniformly en element which has not been selected. For example if the element at position 2 is selected it can be exchanged with all elements at position 2 until position n-1 (as the list /array has 0 - n-1 positions).

2. Implementation in Java

Create a Java project "de.vogella.algorithms.shuffle".

Create the following program for sorting arrays.

			
package de.vogella.algorithms.shuffle;

import java.util.Random;

public class ShuffleArray {
	public static void shuffleArray(int[] a) {
		int n = a.length;
		Random random = new Random();
		random.nextInt();
		for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
			int change = i + random.nextInt(n - i);
			swap(a, i, change);
		}
	}

	private static void swap(int[] a, int i, int change) {
		int helper = a[i];
		a[i] = a[change];
		a[change] = helper;
	}

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		int[] a = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
		shuffleArray(a);
		for (int i : a) {
			System.out.println(i);
		}
	}
}

		

Create the following program for sorting list.

			
package de.vogella.algorithms.shuffle;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;

public class ShuffleList {
	public static void shuffleList(List<Integer> a) {
		int n = a.size();
		Random random = new Random();
		random.nextInt();
		for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
			int change = i + random.nextInt(n - i);
			swap(a, i, change);
		}
	}

	private static void swap(List<Integer> a, int i, int change) {
		int helper = a.get(i);
		a.set(i, a.get(change));
		a.set(change, helper);
	}

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
		list.add(1);
		list.add(2);
		list.add(3);
		list.add(4);
		list.add(5);
		list.add(6);
		list.add(7);
		shuffleList(list);
		for (int i : list) {
			System.out.println(i);
		}
	}
}

		

Why does this shuffle all values randomly? The value at position 0 is exchanged with a randomly selected value (including the original value at position 0). This means that after the first loop position 0 has a random value with an equal likelihood of any value. We continue this with position 1 but we do not need to consider position 0 again as this position already has a random value assigned. After the loop it is equally likely that any value is at any position.

3. Thank you

Please help me to support this article: