Sorting Techniques

Sorting Techniques

The process of getting data elements into order is called sorting.

There are many sorting algorithms available. But no one algorithm for sorting is best in all cases. Ideally, one uses different algorithms depending on whether one is sorting a small set or a large set, on whether the individual elements of the set occupy a lot of storage (so that moving them around in memory is time consuming), on how easy it is to the other, and so on. That means different application requires different sorting methods.

The sorting methods are broadly categorized into two

Internal Sorting:  In internal sorting, all the data elements to be sorted are present in the main memory.

External Sorting: These techniques are applied to large data sets which reside on secondary devices and cannot be complexity fit in the main memory.

Sorting algorithms can be computational expensive, particularly on data sets become large. They can be classified into:

• Simple algorithms
• Sophisticated Algorithms

To Sort’ N’ data elements simple techniques require the order of N² O (N²) comparisons. Depending on the number of swapping and moving a portion of data, sorting algorithm requires considerable amount of processing time. Thus, minimize swapping or moving of data.

Simple Algorithms: Bubble sort, Insertion Sort, Selection Sort.

Sophisticated Algorithms: Quick Sort, Merge Sort, Heap Sort etc