Introducing sorting algorithms in Go

Programming Snapshot – Sorting in Go

Article from Issue 233/2020
Author(s):

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.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Download Article PDF now with Express Checkout
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subscriptions
Digital Subscriptions

Related content

  • Exploring Quicksort

    If you wanted to assign a flavor to the Quicksort algorithm, it would be sweet and sour. Sweet, because it is very elegant; sour, because typical implementations sometimes leave more questions than they answer.

    more »
  • Julia

    Parallel processing is indispensable today – particularly in the field of natural sciences and engineering. Normal desktop users, however, can also benefit from higher performance through parallel execution with at least four calculation cores.

    more »
  • Housecleaning

    This month, Mike Schilli writes a quick terminal UI in Go to help track down space hogs on his hard disk.

    more »
  • Safe Passage

    How does a ferryman transport a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage across a river in a boat that can only carry the ferryman plus one item at a time, without the wolf eating the goat or the goat eating the cabbage while left together back on shore? Mike programs the solution in Go.

    more »
  • Tutorials – Bash Arrays

    Discover the data structures that make your shell scripts really powerful.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus
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.

Learn More

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Mobile Programming Security Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source