Sorting months with pre-defined order?

Question

I want to sort the months of the year starting at any month, but January needs to show up after December if January isn't the starting point. Can I do that in an array or do I need a special data structure or algorithm to do that?

Answer 1

you can easily do this with just an array. [Dec,Jan,Feb,...Oct,Nov] then you can iterate through with month mod 12 and it will produce a sorted list that can wrap around from Dec to Jan. You can simply stop iterating at January if you only want that month to wrap.

Answer 2

Check this Java-ish code:

public void sortMonths(int START) {
    // Jan = 0, ... , Dez = 11
    int[] myArray = new int[12];
    for (int i = START; i < 12; ++i) {
        myArray[i - START] = i;
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < START; ++i) {
        myArray[i] = i;
    }
}

Answer 3

Many sorters let you provide your own comparator which dictates the sort order. Write one that implements your rules and and supply it to the sort function.