Sorting an array of strings in Ruby -

i have learned 2 array sorting methods in ruby:

array = ["one", "two", "three"] array.sort.reverse! 

or:

array = ["one", "two", "three"] array.sort { |x,y| y<=>x } 

and not able differentiate between two. method better , how different in execution?

both lines same (create new array, reverse sorted). main argument readability , performance. array.sort.reverse! more readable array.sort{|x,y| y<=>x} - think can agree here.

for performance part, created quick benchmark script, gives following on system (ruby 1.9.3p392 [x86_64-linux]):

                              user     system      total        real array.sort.reverse        1.330000   0.000000   1.330000 (  1.334667) array.sort.reverse!       1.200000   0.000000   1.200000 (  1.198232) array.sort!.reverse!      1.200000   0.000000   1.200000 (  1.199296) array.sort{|x,y| y<=>x}   5.220000   0.000000   5.220000 (  5.239487) 

run times pretty constant multiple executions of benchmark script.

array.sort.reverse (with or without !) way faster array.sort{|x,y| y<=>x}. thus, recommend that.

---

here script reference:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby require 'benchmark'  benchmark.bm do|b|   master = (1..1_000_000).map(&:to_s).shuffle   = master.dup   b.report("array.sort.reverse      ")     a.sort.reverse   end    = master.dup   b.report("array.sort.reverse!     ")     a.sort.reverse!   end    = master.dup   b.report("array.sort!.reverse!    ")     a.sort!.reverse!   end    = master.dup   b.report("array.sort{|x,y| y<=>x} ")     a.sort{|x,y| y<=>x}   end end