Quicksort with Python

Question

I am totally new to python and I am trying to implement quicksort in it. Could someone please help me complete my code?

I do not know how to concatenate the three arrays and printing them.

def sort(array=[12,4,5,6,7,3,1,15]):
    less = []
    equal = []
    greater = []

    if len(array) > 1:
        pivot = array[0]
        for x in array:
            if x < pivot:
                less.append(x)
            if x == pivot:
                equal.append(x)
            if x > pivot:
                greater.append(x)
            sort(less)
            sort(pivot)
            sort(greater)

Answer 1

A "true" in-place implementation [Algorithms 8.9, 8.11 from the Algorithm Design and Applications Book by Michael T. Goodrich and Roberto Tamassia]:

from random import randint

def partition (A, a, b):
    p = randint(a,b)
    # or mid point
    # p = (a + b) / 2

    piv = A[p]

    # swap the pivot with the end of the array
    A[p] = A[b]
    A[b] = piv

    i = a     # left index (right movement ->)
    j = b - 1 # right index (left movement <-)

    while i <= j:
        # move right if smaller/eq than/to piv
        while A[i] <= piv and i <= j:
            i += 1
        # move left if greater/eq than/to piv
        while A[j] >= piv and j >= i:
            j -= 1

        # indices stopped moving:
        if i < j:
            # swap
            t = A[i]
            A[i] = A[j]
            A[j] = t
    # place pivot back in the right place
    # all values < pivot are to its left and 
    # all values > pivot are to its right
    A[b] = A[i]
    A[i] = piv

    return i

def IpQuickSort (A, a, b):

    while a < b:
        p = partition(A, a, b) # p is pivot's location

        #sort the smaller partition
        if p - a < b - p:
            IpQuickSort(A,a,p-1)
            a = p + 1 # partition less than p is sorted
        else:
            IpQuickSort(A,p+1,b)
            b = p - 1 # partition greater than p is sorted


def main():
    A =  [12,3,5,4,7,3,1,3]
    print A
    IpQuickSort(A,0,len(A)-1)
    print A

if __name__ == "__main__": main()

Answer 2

This is a version of the quicksort using Hoare partition scheme and with fewer swaps and local variables

def quicksort(array):
    qsort(array, 0, len(array)-1)

def qsort(A, lo, hi):
    if lo < hi:
        p = partition(A, lo, hi)
        qsort(A, lo, p)
        qsort(A, p + 1, hi)

def partition(A, lo, hi):
    pivot = A[lo]
    i, j = lo-1, hi+1
    while True:
      i += 1
      j -= 1
      while(A[i] < pivot): i+= 1
      while(A[j] > pivot ): j-= 1

      if i >= j: 
          return j

      A[i], A[j] = A[j], A[i]


test = [21, 4, 1, 3, 9, 20, 25, 6, 21, 14]
print quicksort(test)

Answer 3

I know many people have answered this question correctly and I enjoyed reading them. My answer is almost the same as zangw but I think the previous contributors did not do a good job of explaining visually how things actually work...so here is my attempt to help others that might visit this question/answers in the future about a simple solution for quicksort implementation.

How does it work ?

1. We basically select the first item as our pivot from our list and then we create two sub lists.
2. Our first sublist contains the items that are less than pivot
3. Our second sublist contains our items that are great than or equal to pivot
4. We then quick sort each of those and we combine them the first group + pivot + the second group to get the final result.

Here is an example along with visual to go with it ... (pivot)9,11,2,0

average: n log of n

worse case: n^2

The code:

def quicksort(data):
if (len(data) < 2):
    return data
else:
    pivot = data[0]  # pivot
    #starting from element 1 to the end
    rest = data[1:]
    low = [each for each in rest if each < pivot]
    high = [each for each in rest if each >= pivot]
    return quicksort(low) + [pivot] + quicksort(high)

items=[9,11,2,0] print(quicksort(items))

Answer 4

Quicksort with Python

In real life, we should always use the builtin sort provided by Python. However, understanding the quicksort algorithm is instructive.

My goal here is to break down the subject such that it is easily understood and replicable by the reader without having to return to reference materials.

The quicksort algorithm is essentially the following:

1. Select a pivot data point.
2. Move all data points less than (below) the pivot to a position below the pivot - move those greater than or equal to (above) the pivot to a position above it.
3. Apply the algorithm to the areas above and below the pivot

If the data are randomly distributed, selecting the first data point as the pivot is equivalent to a random selection.

Readable example:

First, let's look at a readable example that uses comments and variable names to point to intermediate values:

def quicksort(xs):
    """Given indexable and slicable iterable, return a sorted list"""
    if xs: # if given list (or tuple) with one ordered item or more: 
        pivot = xs[0]
        # below will be less than:
        below = [i for i in xs[1:] if i < pivot] 
        # above will be greater than or equal to:
        above = [i for i in xs[1:] if i >= pivot]
        return quicksort(below) + [pivot] + quicksort(above)
    else: 
        return xs # empty list

To restate the algorithm and code demonstrated here - we move values above the pivot to the right, and values below the pivot to the left, and then pass those partitions to same function to be further sorted.

Golfed:

This can be golfed to 88 characters:

q=lambda x:x and q([i for i in x[1:]if i<=x[0]])+[x[0]]+q([i for i in x[1:]if i>x[0]])

To see how we get there, first take our readable example, remove comments and docstrings, and find the pivot in-place:

def quicksort(xs):
    if xs: 
        below = [i for i in xs[1:] if i < xs[0]] 
        above = [i for i in xs[1:] if i >= xs[0]]
        return quicksort(below) + [xs[0]] + quicksort(above)
    else: 
        return xs

Now find below and above, in-place:

def quicksort(xs):
    if xs: 
        return (quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i < xs[0]] )
                + [xs[0]] 
                + quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i >= xs[0]]))
    else: 
        return xs

Now, knowing that and returns the prior element if false, else if it is true, it evaluates and returns the following element, we have:

def quicksort(xs):
    return xs and (quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i < xs[0]] )
                   + [xs[0]] 
                   + quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i >= xs[0]]))

Since lambdas return a single epression, and we have simplified to a single expression (even though it is getting more unreadable) we can now use a lambda:

quicksort = lambda xs: (quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i < xs[0]] )
                        + [xs[0]] 
                        + quicksort([i for i in xs[1:] if i >= xs[0]]))

And to reduce to our example, shorten the function and variable names to one letter, and eliminate the whitespace that isn't required.

q=lambda x:x and q([i for i in x[1:]if i<=x[0]])+[x[0]]+q([i for i in x[1:]if i>x[0]])

Note that this lambda, like most code golfing, is rather bad style.

In-place Quicksort, using the Hoare Partitioning scheme

The prior implementation creates a lot of unnecessary extra lists. If we can do this in-place, we'll avoid wasting space.

The below implementation uses the Hoare partitioning scheme, which you can read more about on wikipedia (but we have apparently removed up to 4 redundant calculations per partition() call by using while-loop semantics instead of do-while and moving the narrowing steps to the end of the outer while loop.).

def quicksort(a_list):
    """Hoare partition scheme, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort"""
    def _quicksort(a_list, low, high):
        # must run partition on sections with 2 elements or more
        if low < high: 
            p = partition(a_list, low, high)
            _quicksort(a_list, low, p)
            _quicksort(a_list, p+1, high)
    def partition(a_list, low, high):
        pivot = a_list[low]
        while True:
            while a_list[low] < pivot:
                low += 1
            while a_list[high] > pivot:
                high -= 1
            if low >= high:
                return high
            a_list[low], a_list[high] = a_list[high], a_list[low]
            low += 1
            high -= 1
    _quicksort(a_list, 0, len(a_list)-1)
    return a_list

Not sure if I tested it thoroughly enough:

def main():
    assert quicksort([1]) == [1]
    assert quicksort([1,2]) == [1,2]
    assert quicksort([1,2,3]) == [1,2,3]
    assert quicksort([1,2,3,4]) == [1,2,3,4]
    assert quicksort([2,1,3,4]) == [1,2,3,4]
    assert quicksort([1,3,2,4]) == [1,2,3,4]
    assert quicksort([1,2,4,3]) == [1,2,3,4]
    assert quicksort([2,1,1,1]) == [1,1,1,2]
    assert quicksort([1,2,1,1]) == [1,1,1,2]
    assert quicksort([1,1,2,1]) == [1,1,1,2]
    assert quicksort([1,1,1,2]) == [1,1,1,2]

Conclusion

This algorithm is frequently taught in computer science courses and asked for on job interviews. It helps us think about recursion and divide-and-conquer.

Quicksort is not very practical in Python since our builtin timsort algorithm is quite efficient, and we have recursion limits. We would expect to sort lists in-place with list.sort or create new sorted lists with sorted - both of which take a key and reverse argument.

Answer 5

def is_sorted(arr): #check if array is sorted
    for i in range(len(arr) - 2):
        if arr[i] > arr[i + 1]:
            return False
    return True

def qsort_in_place(arr, left, right): #arr - given array, #left - first element index, #right - last element index
    if right - left < 1: #if we have empty or one element array - nothing to do
        return
    else:
        left_point = left #set left pointer that points on element that is candidate to swap with element under right pointer or pivot element
        right_point = right - 1 #set right pointer that is candidate to swap with element under left pointer

        while left_point <= right_point: #while we have not checked all elements in the given array
            swap_left = arr[left_point] >= arr[right] #True if we have to move that element after pivot
            swap_right = arr[right_point] < arr[right] #True if we have to move that element before pivot

            if swap_left and swap_right: #if both True we can swap elements under left and right pointers
                arr[right_point], arr[left_point] = arr[left_point], arr[right_point]
                left_point += 1
                right_point -= 1
            else: #if only one True we don`t have place for to swap it
                if not swap_left: #if we dont need to swap it we move to next element
                    left_point += 1
                if not swap_right: #if we dont need to swap it we move to prev element
                    right_point -= 1

        arr[left_point], arr[right] = arr[right], arr[left_point] #swap left element with pivot

        qsort_in_place(arr, left, left_point - 1) #execute qsort for left part of array (elements less than pivot)
        qsort_in_place(arr, left_point + 1, right) #execute qsort for right part of array (elements most than pivot)

def main():
    import random
    arr = random.sample(range(1, 4000), 10) #generate random array
    print(arr)
    print(is_sorted(arr))
    qsort_in_place(arr, 0, len(arr) - 1)
    print(arr)
    print(is_sorted(arr))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Answer 6

I think both answers here works ok for the list provided (which answer the original question), but would breaks if an array containing non unique values is passed. So for completeness, I would just point out the small error in each and explain how to fix them.

For example trying to sort the following array [12,4,5,6,7,3,1,15,1] (Note that 1 appears twice) with Brionius algorithm .. at some point will end up with the less array empty and the equal array with a pair of values (1,1) that can not be separated in the next iteration and the len() > 1...hence you'll end up with an infinite loop

You can fix it by either returning array if less is empty or better by not calling sort in your equal array, as in zangw answer

def sort(array=[12,4,5,6,7,3,1,15]):
    less = []
    equal = []
    greater = []

    if len(array) > 1:
        pivot = array[0]
        for x in array:
            if x < pivot:
                less.append(x)
            if x == pivot:
                equal.append(x)
            if x > pivot:
                greater.append(x)

        # Don't forget to return something!
        return sort(less)+ equal +sort(greater)  # Just use the + operator to join lists
    # Note that you want equal ^^^^^ not pivot
    else:  # You need to hande the part at the end of the recursion - when you only have one element in your array, just return the array.
        return array

The fancier solution also breaks, but for a different cause, it is missing the return clause in the recursion line, which will cause at some point to return None and try to append it to a list ....

To fix it just add a return to that line

def qsort(arr): 
   if len(arr) <= 1:
      return arr
   else:
      return qsort([x for x in arr[1:] if x<arr[0]]) + [arr[0]] + qsort([x for x in arr[1:] if x>=arr[0]])