如何在原始数据类型数组上调用java内置的TimSort

Question

In java, The methodArrays.sort has two overloads (that I am interested in, in this post) one is for primitive types and the other is for reference types. They use different sorting algorithms.

How can I use the algorithm used for reference types to sort primitive types (without converting them to reference types neither using lists)

The method Arrays.sort(int[]) uses Dual-Pivot Quicksort .

The method Arrays.sort(Object[]) uses TimSort .

If I have an int[] array = { /* some values here */ }; , How can I sort it using TimSort? (I know that using Integer[] array = { /* some values here */ }; will use TimSort but I do not want that because of the overhead of using Objects instead of primitive data and there might be some boxing and unboxing later)

Or is it not efficient to use TimSort on primitive data?

I had found a class for TimSort java.util.TimSort but I couldn't access it in my codes.

The reason for this question is that Quicksort has a worst case of O(n^2) and I had faced an array that exploited that case. While TimSort has a worst case of (n log(n)) and a best case of O(n)

UPDATE:

I am actually interested in just having a built-in method for TimSort, it does not need to be Arrays.sort . If there is any other built-in method to sort primitive data types using TimSort it is totally welcome.

Answer 1

java built-in TimSort and ComparableTimSort do not work with arrays of primitive data types, it's only sort method expects array of objects

static void sort(Object[] a, int lo, int hi, Object[] work, int workBase, int workLen);

While DualPivotQuicksort has sort methods for primitive types, like:

static void sort(char[] a, int left, int right,
                 char[] work, int workBase, int workLen);
static void sort(int[] a, int left, int right,
                 int[] work, int workBase, int workLen);

Update. Although it's not the answer for original question about Arrays.sort , geeksforgeeks has implementation of timsort for c++/java/python3/c#. Method prototype for java is:

public static void timSort(int[] arr, int n);