Each key in the keys Array has a corresponding item in the items Array. When a key is repositioned during the sorting, the corresponding item in the items Array is similarly repositioned. Therefore, the items Array is sorted according to the arrangement of the corresponding keys in the keys Array.

Each key in the keys Array must implement the IComparable interface to be capable of comparisons with every other key.

You can sort if there are more items than keys, but the items that have no corresponding keys will not be sorted. You cannot sort if there are more keys than items; doing this throws an ArgumentException.

If the sort is not successfully completed, the results are undefined.

This method uses the introspective sort (introsort) algorithm as follows:

• If the partition size is fewer than 16 elements, it uses an tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insertion_sort algorithm.

• If the number of partitions exceeds 2 * Log, where N is the range of the input array, it uses a tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heapsort algorithm.

• Otherwise, it uses a tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort algorithm.

This implementation performs an unstable sort; that is, if two elements are equal, their order might not be preserved. In contrast, a stable sort preserves the order of elements that are equal.

For arrays that are sorted by using the Heapsort and Quicksort algorithms, in the worst case, this method is an O(n log n) operation, where n is the Array.Length of keys.

This example demonstrates the Array.Sort(Array) method.

using System;
public class ArraySortExample {
   public static void Main() {
      string[] strAry = { "All's", "well", "that", "ends", "well" };
      int[] intAry = { 3, 4, 0, 1, 2 };
      Console.Write( "The original string array is: " );
      foreach ( string str in strAry )
         Console.Write( str + " " );
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.Write( "The key array is: " );
      foreach ( int i in intAry )
         Console.Write( i + " " );
      Console.WriteLine();
      Array.Sort( intAry, strAry );
      Console.Write( "The sorted string array is: " );
      foreach ( string str in strAry )
         Console.Write( str + " " );
   }
}

The output is