Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: All Sorts of Sorts
Message-ID: <432.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 90 23:05:28 GMT
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 28


 Date: 02-08-90 (09:25)              Number: 2874 (Echo)
   To: ZAFAR ESSAK                   Refer#: 2869
 From: IAN GREEN                       Read: 02-08-90 (09:25)
 Subj: LEARN TO SORT                 Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE

    Sorting is a bit more subtle than you seem to realize. In my comm 
 program, I use two sorts, one is the bubble sort where I sort the phone 
 book, and the other is a stack oriented partition sort.
    Granted the bubble sort is slow on unordered random data, data that 
 is already partially sorted can be sorted much faster with the bubble 
 sort because it is able to exploit the partial ordering. Stack oriented 
 sorts like the Quick Sort, cannot exploit this and thus are not all that
 suitable to partially ordered data like real data-bases.
    My phone book (in my comm program) is 500 entries, rather small 
 compared to major data-bases, but still representative. Since I modify 
 at most 2 or 3 entries, it makes sense to use the bubble sort since the 
 data is already sorted from the last modification. Because it is always 
 partially ordered at each modification, the logic of algorithm choice 
 becomes obvious.
    My apologies for not having a Forth example for you.

 Ian Green

 NET/Mail : British Columbia Forth Board - Burnaby BC - (604)434-5886   
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett through a semi-automated process.
Report problems to: 'uunet!willett!dwp' or 'willett!dwp@gateway.sei.cmu.edu'