The Quick Sort

A quick sort first selects a value, which is called the pivot value. Although there are many different ways to choose the pivot value, we will simply use the first item in the list. The role of the pivot value is to assist with splitting the list. The actual position where the pivot value belongs in the final sorted list, commonly called the split point, will be used to divide the list for subsequent calls to the quick sort.

for each (unsorted) partition
  set first element as pivot
  storeIndex = pivotIndex + 1
  for i = pivotIndex + 1 to rightmostIndex
    if element[i] < element[pivot]
      swap(i, storeIndex); storeIndex++
  swap(pivot, storeIndex - 1)

1．先从数列中取出一个数作为基准数。

2．分区过程，将比这个数大的数全放到它的右边，小于或等于它的数全放到它的左边。

3．再对左右区间重复第二步，直到各区间只有一个数。

快速排序由于排序效率在同为O(N*logN)的几种排序方法中效率较高，

__author__ = 'jenny'


def quickSort(alist):
   quickSortHelper(alist,0,len(alist)-1)

def quickSortHelper(alist,first,last):
   if first<last:

       splitpoint = partition(alist,first,last)

       quickSortHelper(alist,first,splitpoint-1)
       quickSortHelper(alist,splitpoint+1,last)


def partition(alist,first,last):
   pivotvalue = alist[first]

   leftmark = first+1
   rightmark = last

   done = False
   while not done:

       while leftmark <= rightmark and alist[leftmark] <= pivotvalue:
           leftmark = leftmark + 1

       while alist[rightmark] >= pivotvalue and rightmark >= leftmark:
           rightmark = rightmark -1

       if rightmark < leftmark:
           done = True
       else:
           temp = alist[leftmark]
           alist[leftmark] = alist[rightmark]
           alist[rightmark] = temp

   temp = alist[first]
   alist[first] = alist[rightmark]
   alist[rightmark] = temp


   return rightmark

alist = [54,26,93,17,77,31,44,55,20]
quickSort(alist)
print(alist)

Q-46: Given the following list of numbers [14, 17, 13, 15, 19, 10, 3, 16, 9, 12] which answer shows the contents of the list after the second partitioning according to the quicksort algorithm?
[9, 3, 10, 13, 12, 14, 19, 16, 15, 17]
The first partitioning works on the entire list, and the second partitioning works on the left partition.

Q-47: Given the following list of numbers [1, 20, 11, 5, 2, 9, 16, 14, 13, 19] what would be the first pivot value using the median of 3 method?
9
the three numbers used in selecting the pivot are 1, 9, 19. 9 is the median. 19 would be a bad choice since it is almost the largest.

Q-48: Which of the following sort algorithms are guaranteed to be O(n log n) even in the worst case?
2: Merge Sort is the only guaranteed O(n log n) even in the worst case. The cost is that merge sort uses more memory.
Quick sort can be O(n log n), but if the pivot points are not well chosen and the list is just so, it can be O(n^2).