finding the minimum terms of an array

Comments

• zibadian

  July 2007

  : I have 64 terms and need to find the 5 smallest. At the moment, I
  : store the 64 terms in an array, sort it, then choose the 5 smallest.
  :
  : Is there a more efficient way to find the x smallest terms in an
  : array of size n?
  :
  The fastest general way is to use the a modified bubble sort to sort the array. The modification is that you let the outer loop only run 5 times. This gives it the time of O(5*n), as opposed to quicksort O(n*ln(n)).
  If you know that the array only holds certain values, then there are sorting algorithms which are faster: O(n) time.
• Owitzia

  July 2007

  : : I have 64 terms and need to find the 5 smallest. At the moment, I
  : : store the 64 terms in an array, sort it, then choose the 5 smallest.
  : :
  : : Is there a more efficient way to find the x smallest terms in an
  : : array of size n?
  : :
  : The fastest general way is to use the a modified bubble sort to sort
  : the array. The modification is that you let the outer loop only run
  : 5 times. This gives it the time of O(5*n), as opposed to quicksort
  : O(n*ln(n)).
  : If you know that the array only holds certain values, then there are
  : sorting algorithms which are faster: O(n) time.
  
  Awesome! I thought of using a modified bubble sort, but I didn't know if there were better ways.
  
  Thank you!