Tutorial

How to Shuffle an Array in Java

Published on August 3, 2022
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By Pankaj

How to Shuffle an Array in Java

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There are two ways to shuffle an array in Java.

  1. Collections.shuffle() Method
  2. Random Class

1. Shuffle Array Elements using Collections Class

We can create a list from the array and then use the Collections class shuffle() method to shuffle its elements. Then convert the list to the original array.

package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

public class ShuffleArray {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		Integer[] intArray = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };

		List<Integer> intList = Arrays.asList(intArray);

		Collections.shuffle(intList);

		intList.toArray(intArray);

		System.out.println(Arrays.toString(intArray));
	}
}

Output: [1, 7, 5, 2, 3, 6, 4] Note that the Arrays.asList() works with an array of objects only. The concept of autoboxing doesn’t work with generics. So you can’t use this way to shuffle an array for primitives.

2. Shuffle Array using Random Class

We can iterate through the array elements in a for loop. Then, we use the Random class to generate a random index number. Then swap the current index element with the randomly generated index element. At the end of the for loop, we will have a randomly shuffled array.

package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Random;

public class ShuffleArray {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		int[] array = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
		
		Random rand = new Random();
		
		for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
			int randomIndexToSwap = rand.nextInt(array.length);
			int temp = array[randomIndexToSwap];
			array[randomIndexToSwap] = array[i];
			array[i] = temp;
		}
		System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array));
	}
}

Output: [2, 4, 5, 1, 7, 3, 6]

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Pankaj

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JournalDev
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April 10, 2020

I also noticed that issue… implementation 2 will not give a uniform shuffle. The random index for the swap should be picked in the range of already shuffled items only.

- Reader

    JournalDev
    DigitalOcean Employee
    DigitalOcean Employee badge
    January 8, 2020

    The second one is wrong. It will end up to non uniform distribution.

    - Peter

      JournalDev
      DigitalOcean Employee
      DigitalOcean Employee badge
      December 24, 2019

      Your second implementation is not uniformly random (for example, the sequence 7,1,2,3,4,5,6 is abnormally unlikely to be generated) use the Fisher-Yates algorithm instead.

      - Shuffle Guy

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