Cyclic Sort: Introduction

Let’s go over the Cyclic Sort pattern, its real-world applications, and some problems we can solve with it.

Overview

Cyclic sort is an in-place, unstable, comparison sort algorithm. It is based on the insight that subsequences of numbers in the input array that are not in sorted order actually describe cycles, and that the process of placing each number in its correct position removes these cycles.

The slides below illustrate a traversal through the given array in which the value of the element at the current position determines the next position in the traversal.

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