C++ Quick Sort

Quick sort also referred as partition exchange sort is a divide and conquer algorithm. We choose an element as a pivot and move elements less than pivot to left and greater than the pivot to the right. Recursively left and right sub-lists are sorted. This article provides a sample implementation of quick sort in C++.

Quick Sort Introduction

• Quick Sort is also referred as partition exchange sort.
• In the best/ average case it gives a time complexity of O(nlogn) and worst case time complexity of O(n*n).
• Can be implemented as in-place sorting without need for additional space.
• Quick Sorting involves these steps:
• Pick a pivot element from the input list.
• Perform an input partition operation based on the pivot. Move all elements less than pivot before the pivot element in the list. Move all elements greater than the pivot after the pivot element in the list.
• Recursively sort the left and right sub-lists of the pivot.

Implementation of quick sort

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

const int INPUT_SIZE = 10;

// A simple print function
void print(int *input)
{
    for ( int i = 0; i < INPUT_SIZE; i++ )
        cout << input[i] << " ";
    cout << endl;
}

// The partition function
int partition(int* input, int p, int r)
{
    int pivot = input[r];

    while ( p < r )
    {
        while ( input[p] < pivot )
            p++;

        while ( input[r] > pivot )
            r--;

        if ( input[p] == input[r] )
            p++;
        else if ( p < r )
        {
            int tmp = input[p];
            input[p] = input[r];
            input[r] = tmp;
        }
    }

    return r;
}

// The quicksort recursive function
void quicksort(int* input, int p, int r)
{
    if ( p < r )
    {
        int j = partition(input, p, r);        
        quicksort(input, p, j-1);
        quicksort(input, j+1, r);
    }
}

int main()
{
    int input[INPUT_SIZE] = {500, 700, 800, 100, 300, 200, 900, 400, 1000, 600};
    cout << "Input: ";
    print(input);
    quicksort(input, 0, 9);
    cout << "Output: ";
    print(input);
    return 0;
}

OUTPUT:-

Input: 500 700 800 100 300 200 900 400 1000 600
Output: 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000