About Quick Sort
Quick Sort is a highly efficient sorting algorithm that uses a divide-and-conquer strategy. It works by selecting a 'pivot' element and partitioning the other elements into two sub-arrays according to whether they are less than or greater than the pivot.
Core Concepts
- Divide and Conquer: Partitions array around a pivot element
- In-place: Requires O(log n) additional space for recursion
- Unstable: May not preserve relative order of equal elements
- Time Complexity: O(n log n) average case, O(n²) worst case
- Cache Efficient: Good locality of reference
- Best for: Large datasets with good average performance
Quick Sort is generally faster than merge sort in practice due to better cache performance, despite having a worse worst-case time complexity. The algorithm's performance heavily depends on pivot selection strategy.
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