Lecture 02 Ticket

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Consider the problem of sorting an array \(a\) of \(n\) numerical values. Suppose you can access and modify \(a\) through two methods:

• \(\compare(a, i, j)\) returns \(\true\) if \(a[i] > a[j]\) and \(\false\) otherwise

• \(\swap(a, i, j)\) swaps the values \(a[i]\) and \(a[j]\) in the array. That is, if before calling \(\swap\) we had \(a[i] = x\) and \(a[j] = y\), then after performing \(\swap(a, i, j)\), we would have \(a[i] = y\) and \(a[j] = x\), and the other values in \(a\) would be unaffected.

A natural strategy for sorting \(a\) is the following. Scan through the array to find the index \(i_1\) of the smallest value in \(a\), then swap \(a[i_1]\) with \(a[1]\) so that the smallest value is at index \(1\) in the array after the the \(\swap\). Then do the same for the second smallest value in the array: find the index \(i_2\) storing the second smallest value, and swap it with index \(2\) so that the second smallest value is stored at index \(2\) after the swap. Continue in this way until the array is sorted in increasing order.

1. Express the sorting procedure described above as a method \(\sort(a)\) in pseudocode.

2. If the array \(a\) has size \(n\), how many \(\compare\) operations does your procedure use in the worst case? How many \(\swap\) operations does your procedure use in the worst case? (Give as precise expressions as you can.)