DATA STRUCTURE - QUICK SORT
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Quick sort is a highly efficient sorting algorithm and is based on partitioning of array of data into
smaller arrays. A large array is partitioned into two arrays one of which holds values smaller than
specified value say pivot based on which the partition is made and another array holds values
greater than pivot value.
The quick sort partitions an array and then calls itself recursively twice to sort the resulting two
subarray. This algorithm is quite efficient for large sized data sets as its average and worst case
complexity are of Onlogn where n are no. of items.
Partition in Quicksort
The below given animated representation explains how to find pivot value in the array.
The pivot value divides the list in to two parts. And recursively we find pivot for each sub-lists until
all lists contains only one element.
QuickSort Pivot Algorithm
Based on our understanding of partitioning in quicksort, we should now try to write an algorithm
for it here.
Step 1 − Choose the highest index value has pivot
Step 2 − Take two variables to point left and right of the list excluding pivot
Step 3 − left points to the low index
Step 4 − right points to the high
Step 5 − while value at left is less than pivot move right
Step 6 − while value at right is greater than pivot move left
Step 7 − if both step 5 and step 6 does not match swap left and right
Step 8 − if left ≥ right, the point where they met is new pivot
QuickSort Pivot Pseudocode
The pseudocode for the above algorithm can be derived as −
function partitionFunc(left, right, pivot)
leftPointer = left -1
rightPointer = right
while True do
while A[++leftPointer] < pivot do
//do-nothing
end while
while rightPointer > 0 && A[--rightPointer] > pivot do
//do-nothing
end while
if leftPointer >= rightPointer
break
else
swap leftPointer,rightPointer
end if
end while
swap leftPointer,right
return leftPointer
end function
QuickSort Algorithm
Using pivot algorithm recursively we end-up with smaller possible partitions. Each partition then
processed for quick sort. We define recursive algorithm for quicksort as below −
Step 1 − Make the right-most index value pivot
Step 2 − partition the array using pivot value
Step 3 − quicksort left partition recursively
Step 4 − quicksort right partition recursively
QuickSort Pseudocode
To get more into it, let see the pseudocode for quick sort algorithm −
procedure quickSort(left, right)
if right-left <= 0
return
else
pivot = A[right]
partition = partitionFunc(left, right, pivot)
quickSort(left,partition-1)
quickSort(partition+1,right)
end if
end procedure
To see quick sort implementation in C programming language, please click here.
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