Sort String Array in Java

Java – Sort String Array

To sort a String array in Java, call Arrays.sort() method and pass the array as argument. Arrays.sort() method sorts the given array in-place in ascending order. The sorting of strings happen lexicographically.

Examples

In the following example, we take a string array and sort it in ascending order using Arrays.sort().

Main.java

import java.util.Arrays;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String arr[] = {"banana", "cherry", "apple"};
        System.out.println("Original : " + Arrays.toString(arr));

        Arrays.sort(arr);
        System.out.println("Sorted   : " + Arrays.toString(arr));
    }
}

Output

Original : [banana, cherry, apple]
Sorted   : [apple, banana, cherry]

To sort the array in descending order, we may first sort the given array in ascending order, and then reverse it.

Conclusion

In this Java Tutorial, we learned how to sort a string array using Arrays.sort() method with examples.