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I was wondering if anyone has ever used linked lists to do heap sort and if they have could they provide the code. I have been able to do heapsort using arrays, but trying to do it in linked lists seems unpractical and just a pain in the you know where. I have to implement linked lists for a project Im doing, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also I am using C.
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The answer is "you don't want to implement heap sort on a linked list." Heapsort is a good sorting algorithm because it's O(n log n) and it's in-place. However, when you have a linked list heapsort is no longer O(n log n) because it relies on random access to the array, which you do not have in a linked list.
Generally speaking, merge sort is best suited for linked lists. This is due to the nature of the algorithm requiring less random access of memory. Quicksort can be fast but unreliable. Quicksort for arrays is a better option than for linked lists; the lookup times of arrays are faster than for linked lists.
Yes, you can implement it without relying on an array.
Below is a simple insertion sort algorithm for a linked list. 1) Create an empty sorted (or result) list 2) Traverse the given list, do following for every node. ......a) Insert current node in sorted way in sorted or result list. 3) Change head of given linked list to head of sorted (or result) list.
The answer is "you don't want to implement heap sort on a linked list."
Heapsort is a good sorting algorithm because it's O(n log n) and it's in-place. However, when you have a linked list heapsort is no longer O(n log n) because it relies on random access to the array, which you do not have in a linked list. So you either lose your in-place attribute (by needing to define a tree-like structure is O(n) space). Or you will need to do without them, but remember that a linked list is O(n) for member lookup. Which brings the runtime complexity to something like O(n^2 log n) which is worse than bubblesort.
Just use mergesort instead. You already have the O(n) memory overhead requirement.
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