Introducing sorting algorithms in Go
Programming Snapshot – Sorting in Go
Whether alphabetical or numerical, bubble sort or quicksort, there is no escape from sorting in computer science. In this month's column, Mike Schilli sorts out the pros and cons of various sorting algorithms in Go.
Long before the first computers existed, sorting data occupied mankind. The German-American Herman Hollerith invented an electromechanical machine as early as 1890 that sorted punched cards into different exit shafts to speed up the evaluation of the US census of that era. And even today, computers continue to sort data – whether this be for a list of YouTube video suggestions, the top 100 charts in the music industry by sales figures, or the slowest queries against a MySQL database for performance analysis purposes.
Machines sort at amazing speeds with programs changing the order of arbitrarily formed data structures. Most of the time, they're relying on a simple key as a sorting criterion, often an integer or a character string. This explains why classical reference works on sorting algorithms [1] [2] often only show you how to sort a series of numbers. This is because porting these algorithms to deal with more complex data structures is trivial and can be done by simply defining a mapping of the data structure to a key.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.