For short arrays I suggest using np.argsort() by finding the indices of the sorted negatived array, which is slightly faster than reversing the sorted array:

In [37]: temp = np.random.randint(1,10, 10)

In [38]: %timeit np.sort(temp)[::-1]
100000 loops, best of 3: 4.65 µs per loop

In [39]: %timeit temp[np.argsort(-temp)]
100000 loops, best of 3: 3.91 µs per loop

Unfortunately when you have a complex array, only np.sort(temp)[::-1] works properly. The two other methods mentioned here are not effective.

>>> a=np.array([5, 2, 7, 4, 4, 2, 8, 6, 4, 4])

>>> np.sort(a)
array([2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])

>>> -np.sort(-a)
array([8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2])

Hello I was searching for a solution to reverse sorting a two dimensional numpy array, and I couldn’t find anything that worked, but I think I have stumbled on a solution which I am uploading just in case anyone is in the same boat.

x=np.sort(array)
y=np.fliplr(x)

np.sort sorts ascending which is not what you want, but the command fliplr flips the rows left to right! Seems to work!

Hope it helps you out!

I guess it’s similar to the suggest about -np.sort(-a) above but I was put off going for that by comment that it doesn’t always work. Perhaps my solution won’t always work either however I have tested it with a few arrays and seems to be OK.

i suggest using this …

np.arange(start_index, end_index, intervals)[::-1]

for example:

np.arange(10, 20, 0.5)
np.arange(10, 20, 0.5)[::-1]

Then your resault:

[ 19.5,  19. ,  18.5,  18. ,  17.5,  17. ,  16.5,  16. ,  15.5,
    15. ,  14.5,  14. ,  13.5,  13. ,  12.5,  12. ,  11.5,  11. ,
    10.5,  10. ]

Be careful with dimensions.

Let

x  # initial numpy array
I = np.argsort(x) or I = x.argsort() 
y = np.sort(x)    or y = x.sort()
z  # reverse sorted array

Full Reverse

z = x[I[::-1]]
z = -np.sort(-x)
z = np.flip(y)

• flip changed in 1.15, previous versions 1.14 required axis. Solution: pip install --upgrade numpy.

First Dimension Reversed

z = y[::-1]
z = np.flipud(y)
z = np.flip(y, axis=0)

Second Dimension Reversed

z = y[::-1, :]
z = np.fliplr(y)
z = np.flip(y, axis=1)

Testing

Testing on a 100×10×10 array 1000 times.

Method       | Time (ms)
-------------+----------
y[::-1]      | 0.126659  # only in first dimension
-np.sort(-x) | 0.133152
np.flip(y)   | 0.121711
x[I[::-1]]   | 4.611778

x.sort()     | 0.024961
x.argsort()  | 0.041830
np.flip(x)   | 0.002026

This is mainly due to reindexing rather than argsort.

# Timing code
import time
import numpy as np


def timeit(fun, xs):
    t = time.time()
    for i in range(len(xs)):  # inline and map gave much worse results for x[-I], 5*t
        fun(xs[i])
    t = time.time() - t
    print(np.round(t,6))

I, N = 1000, (100, 10, 10)
xs = np.random.rand(I,*N)
timeit(lambda x: np.sort(x)[::-1], xs)
timeit(lambda x: -np.sort(-x), xs)
timeit(lambda x: np.flip(x.sort()), xs)
timeit(lambda x: x[x.argsort()[::-1]], xs)
timeit(lambda x: x.sort(), xs)
timeit(lambda x: x.argsort(), xs)
timeit(lambda x: np.flip(x), xs)

You could sort the array first (Ascending by default) and then apply np.flip()
(https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.flip.html)

FYI It works with datetime objects as well.

Example:

    x = np.array([2,3,1,0]) 
    x_sort_asc=np.sort(x) 
    print(x_sort_asc)

    >>> array([0, 1, 2, 3])

    x_sort_desc=np.flip(x_sort_asc) 
    print(x_sort_desc)

    >>> array([3,2,1,0])

Here is a quick trick

In[3]: import numpy as np
In[4]: temp = np.random.randint(1,10, 10)
In[5]: temp
Out[5]: array([5, 4, 2, 9, 2, 3, 4, 7, 5, 8])

In[6]: sorted = np.sort(temp)
In[7]: rsorted = list(reversed(sorted))
In[8]: sorted
Out[8]: array([2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9])

In[9]: rsorted
Out[9]: [9, 8, 7, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2]

np.flip() and reversed indexed are basically the same. Below is a benchmark using three different methods. It seems np.flip() is slightly faster. Using negation is slower because it is used twice so reversing the array is faster than that.

** Note that np.flip() is faster than np.fliplr() according to my tests.

def sort_reverse(x):
    return np.sort(x)[::-1]

def sort_negative(x):
    return -np.sort(-x)

def sort_flip(x):
    return np.flip(np.sort(x)) 

arr=np.random.randint(1,10000,size=(1,100000))

%timeit sort_reverse(arr)
%timeit sort_negative(arr)
%timeit sort_flip(arr)

and the results are:

6.61 ms ± 67.4 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
6.69 ms ± 64.7 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
6.57 ms ± 58.2 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

You can use the sort function from numpy :

array = np.random.rand(10) 
rev_sort = -np.sort(-array)