Sorting

Abstract

Sorting is a simple and practically important example of advantages provided by efficient algorithms (over straightforward ones). First (section 4.1) we formulate the sorting problem and show two straightforward (but inefficient) algorithms. Then (section 4.2) we show two much more efficient algorithms (merge sort and heap sort) that have running times proportional to n log n (instead of n2). In section 4.3 we show how sorting algorithms can be applied even if the statement of the problem does not mention sorting. Section 4.4 provides some lower bound for the number of comparisons needed for sorting (thus showing that our algorithm cannot be significantly improved). Finally, in section 4.5 we consider some nice problems related to sorting.