Selection sort in C usually written in the form of the following code below, introducing a min_pos variable in which is stored the index of the mininum number of the array in a particular step of a for loop :
void selectionsort(int A[], int n)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i )
{
int min_pos = i;
for (int j = i 1; j < n; j )
{
if (A[j] < A[min_pos])
{
min_pos = j;
}
if (min_pos != i)
{
int temp;
temp = A[i];
A[i] = A[min_pos];
A[min_pos] = temp;
}
}
}
return;
}
But, Is it necessary to introduce this variable when we can get the same result using the following code ?
void selectionsort(int A[], int n)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i )
{
for (int j = i 1; j < n; j )
{
if (A[j] < A[i])
{
int temp;
temp = A[i];
A[i] = A[j];
A[j] = temp;
}
}
}
return;
}
CodePudding user response:
I think both algorithms are not particularly efficient, a more efficient way to write them would be as below:
void selectionsort(int A[], int n)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i )
{
int min_pos = i;
for (int j = i 1; j < n; j )
{
if (A[j] < A[min_pos])
{
min_pos = j;
}
}
if (min_pos != i)
{
int temp;
temp = A[i];
A[i] = A[min_pos];
A[min_pos] = temp;
}
}
return;
}
Notice how the min_pos variable is used as a temporary storage for the swapping position. This is beneficial since the swapping requires three operations while using min_pos only requires one operation.
CodePudding user response:
Both functions achieve the same result but neither one is a correct implementation of selection sort. They implement a less efficient algorithm called exchange sort.
For selection sort, a single swap should be performed for each element in the array. This was probably the purpose of the min_pos
variable in the first function.
Here is a modified version:
void selectionsort(int A[], int n)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i )
{
int min_pos = i;
for (int j = i 1; j < n; j )
{
if (A[j] < A[min_pos])
{
min_pos = j;
}
}
if (min_pos != i)
{
int temp = A[i];
A[i] = A[min_pos];
A[min_pos] = temp;
}
}
}