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Sorting Algorithms

The worst-case running time O(n^2) is used to characterize insertion sort, as it provides an upper bound on the algorithm's performance that is guaranteed not to be exceeded, regardless of the input.

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Photal Khan Wafa Abbas
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30 views14 pages

Sorting Algorithms

The worst-case running time O(n^2) is used to characterize insertion sort, as it provides an upper bound on the algorithm's performance that is guaranteed not to be exceeded, regardless of the input.

Uploaded by

Photal Khan Wafa Abbas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sorting Algorithms

Sorting
• Sorting is a process that organizes a collection of data
into either ascending or descending order.
• Formally
• Input: A sequence of n numbers <a1,a2,…,an>
• Output: A reordering <a1,a2,…,an> of the sequence such that
a1 ≤ a2 ≤ … ≤ an
• Given the input <6, 3, 1, 7>, the algorithm should produce
<1, 3, 6, 7>
• Called an instance of the problem
Sorting Algorithms
• We will learn:
– Selection Sort
– Insertion Sort
– Bubble Sort
– Merge Sort
– Quick Sort
These are among the most fundamental sorting
algorithms
Selection Sort
• Partition the input list into a sorted and unsorted
part (initially sorted part is empty)
• Select the smallest element and put it to the end of
the sorted part
• Increase the size of the sorted part by one
• Repeat this n-1 times to sort a list of n elements
Selection Sort (cont.)
SelectionSort(A, n) {
for i  0 to n-1
min  i
for j  i+1 to n
if (A[j] < A[min])
min  j
swap(A[i], A[min])

}
swap( &lhs, &rhs )
{
tmp  lhs
lhs  rhs
rhs  tmp
}
Sorted Unsorted

23 78 45 8 32 56 Original List

After pass 1
8 78 45 23 32 56

8 23 45 78 32 56 After pass 2

After pass 3
8 23 32 78 45 56

After pass 4
8 23 32 45 78 56

After pass 5
8 23 32 45 56 78
Selection Sort -- Analysis
• What is the complexity of selection sort?
• Does it have different best, average, and worst case
complexities?
Selection Sort – Analysis (cont.)
• Selection sort is O(n2) for all three cases (prove this)
• Therefore it is not very efficient
Insertion Sort
• Insertion sort is a simple sorting algorithm that is
appropriate for small inputs.
– Most common sorting technique used by card players.
• Again, the list is divided into two parts: sorted and
unsorted.
• In each pass, the first element of the unsorted part
is picked up, transferred to the sorted sublist, and
inserted at the appropriate place.
• A list of n elements will take at most n-1 passes to
sort the data.
Insertion Sort Algorithm
InsertionSort(A, n)
{
for i  1 to n
temp  a[i]
for j  i where j>0 and temp < a[j-1]
a[j]  a[j-1] // shift elements
a[j]  temp // insert
}
Insertion Sort
Sorted Unsorted

23 78 45 8 32 56 Original List

After pass 1
23 78 45 8 32 56

23 45 78 8 32 56 After pass 2

After pass 3
8 23 45 78 32 56

After pass 4
8 23 32 45 78 56

After pass 5
8 23 32 45 56 78
Insertion Sort – Analysis
• Running time depends on not only the size of the array but also
the contents of the array.
• Best-case:  O(n)
– Array is already sorted in ascending order.

• Worst-case:  O(n2)
– Array is in reverse order:

• Average-case:  O(n2)
– We have to look at all possible initial data organizations.
Analysis of insertion sort
• Which running time will be used to characterize this
algorithm?
– Best, worst or average?
• Worst:
– Longest running time (this is the upper limit for the algorithm)
– It is guaranteed that the algorithm will not be worse than this.
• Sometimes we are interested in average case. But there are
some problems with the average case.
– It is difficult to figure out the average case. i.e. what is average
input?
– Are we going to assume all possible inputs are equally likely?
– In fact for most algorithms average case is same as the worst case.

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