{"id":7350,"date":"2024-03-14T05:24:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T05:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-sort-an-array-in-c-language-from-largest-to-smallest\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T15:04:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T15:04:23","slug":"how-to-sort-an-array-in-c-language-from-largest-to-smallest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-sort-an-array-in-c-language-from-largest-to-smallest\/","title":{"rendered":"C Array Sorting: Largest to Smallest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You can use the standard library function qsort() in C language to sort an array in descending order.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-meta\">#<span class=\"hljs-keyword\">include<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">&lt;stdio.h&gt;<\/span><\/span>\r\n<span class=\"hljs-meta\">#<span class=\"hljs-keyword\">include<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">&lt;stdlib.h&gt;<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span class=\"hljs-comment\">\/\/ \u6bd4\u8f83\u51fd\u6570\uff0c\u7528\u4e8eqsort()\u6392\u5e8f\u65f6\u6307\u5b9a\u6392\u5e8f\u89c4\u5219<\/span>\r\n<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-title function_\">compare<\/span><span class=\"hljs-params\">(<span class=\"hljs-type\">const<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-type\">void<\/span> *a, <span class=\"hljs-type\">const<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-type\">void<\/span> *b)<\/span> {\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">return<\/span> (*(<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span>*)b - *(<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span>*)a);\r\n}\r\n\r\n<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-title function_\">main<\/span><span class=\"hljs-params\">()<\/span> {\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span> arr[] = {<span class=\"hljs-number\">5<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">2<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">8<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">3<\/span>};\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span> n = <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">sizeof<\/span>(arr) \/ <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">sizeof<\/span>(arr[<span class=\"hljs-number\">0<\/span>]);\r\n    \r\n    qsort(arr, n, <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">sizeof<\/span>(<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span>), compare);\r\n\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-built_in\">printf<\/span>(<span class=\"hljs-string\">\"\u6570\u7ec4\u4ece\u5927\u5230\u5c0f\u6392\u5e8f\u540e\uff1a\\n\"<\/span>);\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">for<\/span> (<span class=\"hljs-type\">int<\/span> i = <span class=\"hljs-number\">0<\/span>; i &lt; n; i++) {\r\n        <span class=\"hljs-built_in\">printf<\/span>(<span class=\"hljs-string\">\"%d \"<\/span>, arr[i]);\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">return<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-number\">0<\/span>;\r\n}\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In the above code, we have defined a comparison function compare() which determines the sorting rule based on the size of the two parameters passed in. Then, in the main() function, we use the qsort() function to sort the array arr, with the sorting rule specified by the compare() function.<\/p>\n<p>By running the above code, the output will be: 8 5 3 2 1, which is the result of sorting the array in descending order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can use the standard library function qsort() in C language to sort an array in descending order. #include &lt;stdio.h&gt; #include &lt;stdlib.h&gt; \/\/ \u6bd4\u8f83\u51fd\u6570\uff0c\u7528\u4e8eqsort()\u6392\u5e8f\u65f6\u6307\u5b9a\u6392\u5e8f\u89c4\u5219 int compare(const void *a, const void *b) { return (*(int*)b &#8211; *(int*)a); } int main() { int arr[] = {5, 2, 8, 1, 3}; int n = sizeof(arr) \/ sizeof(arr[0]); qsort(arr, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2847,2026,381,6038,9367],"class_list":["post-7350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-array-sorting","tag-c-arrays","tag-c-programming","tag-descending-order","tag-qsort-function"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v21.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>C Array Sorting: Largest to Smallest - Blog - Silicon Cloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to sort arrays in C from largest to smallest using qsort(). 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