A NEW PIVOT SELECTION SCHEME FOR QUICKSORT ALGORITHM
Aminu Mohammed, Mohamed Othman · 2004
Data sorting is one of the most intensively studied problems in computing science for both its theoretical importance and its use in many applications. Quicksort which depends on an appropriate pivot selection technique for its performance is widely considered to be one of the most efficient sorting techniques. Brest et al. (2000) has implemented a parallel quicksort algorithm on PC-cluster using a Median5 function as a pivot selection scheme. In this paper, a sequential quicksort was implemented using Median5 function as a pivot selection scheme and subsequently a new pivot selection scheme for minimizing the execution time of quicksort algorithm sequentially is proposed. The two schemes were tested together using integer and double array data types. From the results obtained, the execution time of quicksort algorithm was reduced by about 23-28% for integer array and 17-22% for double array when compared with Median5 function (median-of-five with random index selection scheme).