Sort First Half in Ascending Order and Second Half in Descending

Understanding Sorting Strategy

This task involves sorting the first half of an array in ascending order and the second half in descending order.

We will explore three different methods to achieve this in Python.

Method 1: Using Slicing

This method splits the array into two halves and sorts them separately.

def sort_half(arr):
    mid = len(arr) // 2
    arr[:mid] = sorted(arr[:mid])
    arr[mid:] = sorted(arr[mid:], reverse=True)
    return arr

arr = [7, 2, 5, 3, 9, 8, 6, 4]
print(sort_half(arr))
            

Method 2: Using a Single Loop

This method sorts the array manually within a single loop.

def sort_half(arr):
    mid = len(arr) // 2
    first_half = sorted(arr[:mid])
    second_half = sorted(arr[mid:], reverse=True)
    return first_half + second_half

arr = [7, 2, 5, 3, 9, 8, 6, 4]
print(sort_half(arr))
            

Method 3: Using List Comprehension

This method utilizes list comprehension for efficient sorting.

def sort_half(arr):
    mid = len(arr) // 2
    return sorted(arr[:mid]) + sorted(arr[mid:], reverse=True)

arr = [7, 2, 5, 3, 9, 8, 6, 4]
print(sort_half(arr))