What is Quick Sort and can you provide an example?

What is Quick Sort and can you provide an example?

Quick Sort is a divide-and-conquer algorithm that sorts an array 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.

How does the partitioning process work in Quick Sort?

In the partitioning process, elements are rearranged so that all elements less than the pivot come before it and all elements greater come after it. This is done by iterating through the array and swapping elements as needed.

Can you show me a code example of Quick Sort?

Sure! Here's a simple implementation in Python:

def quick_sort(arr):
    if len(arr) <= 1:
        return arr
    pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2]
    left = [x for x in arr if x < pivot]
    middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot]
    right = [x for x in arr if x > pivot]
    return quick_sort(left) + middle + quick_sort(right)

What is the time complexity of Quick Sort?

The average time complexity of Quick Sort is O(n log n), but in the worst case, it can be O(n²) if the pivot elements are poorly chosen.