Week 09 Sorting and Searching

For much of this course we have focused on keeping lists in sorted order. One important reason for doing this is to facilitate searching - given an appropriate ADT implementation an element in a list can be found faster if the list is sorted. This week we examine directly strategies for both sorting and searching. In particular, we will investigate three simple sorting algorithms: selection, bubble, and insertion sort. We will then explore three additional sorting algorithms that are more efficient: merge, quick, and heap sort. We will also cover general issues related to sorting objects. Lastly, we will discuss the topic of hashing, an approach allowing the quick storage and retrieval of information under certain conditions.