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qsort is a C standard library function that implements a sorting algorithm for arrays of arbitrary objects according to a user-provided comparison function. It is named after the "quicker sort" algorithm [1] (a quicksort variant due to R. S. Scowen), which was originally used to implement it in the Unix C library, although the C standard does not require it to implement quicksort.
Quicksort was developed by British computer scientist Tony Hoare in 1959 [1] and published in 1961. [2] It is still a commonly used algorithm for sorting. Overall, it is slightly faster than merge sort and heapsort for randomized data, particularly on larger distributions. [3] Quicksort is a divide-and-conquer algorithm. It works by selecting a ...
Las Vegas algorithms were introduced by László Babai in 1979, in the context of the graph isomorphism problem, as a dual to Monte Carlo algorithms. [3] Babai [4] introduced the term "Las Vegas algorithm" alongside an example involving coin flips: the algorithm depends on a series of independent coin flips, and there is a small chance of failure (no result).
Multi-key quicksort, also known as three-way radix quicksort, [1] is an algorithm for sorting strings.This hybrid of quicksort and radix sort was originally suggested by P. Shackleton, as reported in one of C.A.R. Hoare's seminal papers on quicksort; [2]: 14 its modern incarnation was developed by Jon Bentley and Robert Sedgewick in the mid-1990s. [3]
Introsort or introspective sort is a hybrid sorting algorithm that provides both fast average performance and (asymptotically) optimal worst-case performance. It begins with quicksort, it switches to heapsort when the recursion depth exceeds a level based on (the logarithm of) the number of elements being sorted and it switches to insertion sort when the number of elements is below some threshold.
A randomized algorithm is an algorithm that employs a degree of randomness as part of its logic or procedure. The algorithm typically uses uniformly random bits as an auxiliary input to guide its behavior, in the hope of achieving good performance in the "average case" over all possible choices of random determined by the random bits; thus either the running time, or the output (or both) are ...
The divide-and-conquer technique is the basis of efficient algorithms for many problems, such as sorting (e.g., quicksort, merge sort), multiplying large numbers (e.g., the Karatsuba algorithm), finding the closest pair of points, syntactic analysis (e.g., top-down parsers), and computing the discrete Fourier transform .
Samplesort is a generalization of quicksort. Where quicksort partitions its input into two parts at each step, based on a single value called the pivot, samplesort instead takes a larger sample from its input and divides its data into buckets accordingly. Like quicksort, it then recursively sorts the buckets.