keeping track of the original indices of an array after sorting

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I have an array let's say A=[5 4 1 2 3]. Now I have sorted these arrays in ascending order.So the resulting array will now be [1 2 3 4 5]. I use sort(A,'ascend') function to sort this. The question is how can I get the indices of the original array with respect to my new array. originally my indices were 1,2,3,4,5 for corresponding values of 5,4,1,2,3 and now the indices have changed to 3,4,5,2,1. How can I get these indices efficiently in Matlab?
  1 Comment
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 25 Jun 2015
Edited: Stephen23 on 25 Jun 2015
The documentation clearly explains that the function sort has two outputs... the second output are the indices that you are after.

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Accepted Answer

Mischa Kim
Mischa Kim on 25 Jun 2015
Md, simply use
[B,I] = sort(A,'ascend')
B =
1 2 3 4 5
I =
3 4 5 2 1

More Answers (2)

Andy
Andy on 3 Apr 2017
and B = A(I), according to documentation, isn't it?
I get following:
>> x = [ 1 3 2 7; 4 3 2 1]
x =
1 3 2 7
4 3 2 1
>> [y,i] = sort(x,2)
y =
1 2 3 7
1 2 3 4
i =
1 3 2 4
4 3 2 1
>> y1 = x(i)
y1 =
1 3 4 3
3 3 4 1
I see y1 is different from y ...
  2 Comments
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 3 Apr 2017
Edited: Stephen23 on 21 Mar 2018
"and B = A(I), according to documentation, isn't it?"
The documentation states "if A is a vector, then B = A(I)." Is your input a vector? NO. However you can esaily read the rest of the documentation, where it explains the output for matrices and arrays: "The index vectors are oriented along the same dimension that sort operates on. For example, if A is a 2-by-3 matrix, then [B,I] = sort(A,2) sorts the elements in each row of A. The output I is a collection of 1-by-3 row index vectors describing the rearrangement of each row of A."
And your data shows this clearly:
i =
1 3 2 4
4 3 2 1
Have a look: do you see that these are the indices along each row, which is exactly what the documentation states that you would get. It means you cannot use A(I) syntax. You could use sub2ind though.

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Leelakrishna Vuriti
Leelakrishna Vuriti on 3 Dec 2019
Capture2.JPG
how to arrange the values in ascending order along with its corresponding index change ? what is the command for this ? help me out !

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