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Boost.Sort

This Release

Steven Ross
Maintainer

BOOST SORT

Introduction

The goal of the Boost Sort Library is provide to the users, the most modern and fast sorting algorithms.

This library provides stable and not stable sorting algorithms, in single thread and parallel versions.

These algorithms do not use any other library or utility. The parallel algorithms need a C++11 compliant compiler.

Detailed boost API documentation also available.

Single Thread Algorithms

Algorithm Stable Additional memory Best, average, and worst case Comparison method
spreadsort no key_length N, N sqrt(LogN), Hybrid radix sort
min(N logN, N key_length)
pdqsort no Log N N, N LogN, N LogN Comparison operator
spinsort yes N / 2 N, N LogN, N LogN Comparison operator
flat_stable_sort yes size of the data / 256 + 8K N, N LogN, N LogN Comparison operator
  • spreadsort is a novel hybrid radix sort algorithm, extremely fast, designed and developed by Steven Ross. (paper)

  • pdqsort is a improvement of the quick sort algorithm, designed and developed by Orson Peters. (paper)

  • spinsort is a stable sort, fast with random and with near sorted data, designed and developed by Francisco Tapia.

  • flat_stable_sort stable sort with a small additional memory (around 1% of the size of the data), provide the 80% - 90% of the speed of spinsort, being fast with random and with near sorted data, designed and developed by Francisco Tapia. (paper)

Parallel Algorithms

Algorithm Stable Additional memory Best, average, and worst case
block_indirect_sort no block_size * num_threads N, N LogN , N LogN
sample_sort yes N N, N LogN , N LogN
parallel_stable_sort yes N / 2 N, N LogN , N LogN
  • Sample_sort is a implementation of the Samplesort algorithm done by Francisco Tapia.

  • Parallel_stable_sort is based on the samplesort algorithm, but using a half of the memory used by sample_sort, conceived and implemented by Francisco Tapia.

  • Block_indirect_sort is a novel parallel sort algorithm, very fast, with low additional memory consumption, conceived and implemented by Francisco Tapia. (paper)

The block_size is an internal parameter of the algorithm, which in order to achieve the highest speed, changes according to the size of the objects to sort according to the next table. The strings use a block_size of 128.

object size (bytes) 1 - 15 16 - 31 32 - 63 64 - 127 128 - 255 256 - 511 512 -
block_size (number of elements) 4096 2048 1024 768 512 256 128

Installation

  • This library is include only.
  • Don't need to link with any static or dynamic library. Only need a C++11 compiler
  • Only need to include the file boost/sort/sort.hpp

Author and Copyright

This library is integrated in the Boost Library.

Copyright 2017

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.