Quick Sorting in c

[Akshata13-AI]

QuickSort is a Divide and Conquer algorithm. It picks an element as pivot and partitions the given array around the picked pivot. There are many different versions of quickSort that pick pivot in different ways.

Always pick first element as pivot.
Always pick last element as pivot (implemented below)
Pick a random element as pivot.
Pick median as pivot.
The key process in quickSort is partition(). Target of partitions is, given an array and an element x of array as pivot, put x at its correct position in sorted array and put all smaller elements (smaller than x) before x, and put all greater elements (greater than x) after x. All this should be done in linear time.

Pseudo code --
/* low --> Starting index, high --> Ending index /
quickSort(arr[], low, high)
{
if (low < high)
{
/ pi is partitioning index, arr[pi] is now
at right place */
pi = partition(arr, low, high);

    quickSort(arr, low, pi - 1);  // Before pi
    quickSort(arr, pi + 1, high); // After pi
}

}
Pseudo code for partition()

/* This function takes last element as pivot, places
the pivot element at its correct position in sorted
array, and places all smaller (smaller than pivot)
to left of pivot and all greater elements to right
of pivot */
partition (arr[], low, high)
{
// pivot (Element to be placed at right position)
pivot = arr[high];

i = (low - 1)  // Index of smaller element

for (j = low; j <= high- 1; j++)
{
    // If current element is smaller than the pivot
    if (arr[j] < pivot)
    {
        i++;    // increment index of smaller element
        swap arr[i] and arr[j]
    }
}
swap arr[i + 1] and arr[high])
return (i + 1)

}
Illustration of partition() :

arr[] = {10, 80, 30, 90, 40, 50, 70}
Indexes: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

low = 0, high = 6, pivot = arr[h] = 70
Initialize index of smaller element, i = -1

Traverse elements from j = low to high-1
j = 0 : Since arr[j] <= pivot, do i++ and swap(arr[i], arr[j])
i = 0
arr[] = {10, 80, 30, 90, 40, 50, 70} // No change as i and j
// are same

j = 1 : Since arr[j] > pivot, do nothing
// No change in i and arr[]

j = 2 : Since arr[j] <= pivot, do i++ and swap(arr[i], arr[j])
i = 1
arr[] = {10, 30, 80, 90, 40, 50, 70} // We swap 80 and 30

j = 3 : Since arr[j] > pivot, do nothing
// No change in i and arr[]

j = 4 : Since arr[j] <= pivot, do i++ and swap(arr[i], arr[j])
i = 2
arr[] = {10, 30, 40, 90, 80, 50, 70} // 80 and 40 Swapped
j = 5 : Since arr[j] <= pivot, do i++ and swap arr[i] with arr[j]
i = 3
arr[] = {10, 30, 40, 50, 80, 90, 70} // 90 and 50 Swapped

We come out of loop because j is now equal to high-1.
Finally we place pivot at correct position by swapping
arr[i+1] and arr[high] (or pivot)
arr[] = {10, 30, 40, 50, 70, 90, 80} // 80 and 70 Swapped

Now 70 is at its correct place. All elements smaller than
70 are before it and all elements greater than 70 are after
it.