Fastest way to sort 10 numbers? (numbers are 32 bit)

Question

I'm solving a problem and it involves sorting 10 numbers (int32) very quickly. My application needs to sort 10 numbers millions of times as fast as possible. I'm sampling a data set of billions of elements and every time I need to pick 10 numbers out of it (simplified) and sort them (and make conclusions from the sorted 10 element list).

Currently I'm using insertion sort, but I imagine I could implement a very fast custom sorting algorithm for my specific problem of 10 numbers which would beat insertion sort.

How can I approach this problem?

Answer 1

(Following up on the suggestion of HelloWorld to look into sorting networks.)

It seems that a 29-comparison/swap network is the fastest way to do a 10-input sort. I used the network discovered by Waksman in 1969 for this example in JavaScript, which should translate directly into C, as it's just a list of if statements, comparisons and swaps.

function sortNet10(data) {    // ten-input sorting network by Waksman, 1969
    var swap;
    if (data[0] > data[5]) { swap = data[0]; data[0] = data[5]; data[5] = swap; }
    if (data[1] > data[6]) { swap = data[1]; data[1] = data[6]; data[6] = swap; }
    if (data[2] > data[7]) { swap = data[2]; data[2] = data[7]; data[7] = swap; }
    if (data[3] > data[8]) { swap = data[3]; data[3] = data[8]; data[8] = swap; }
    if (data[4] > data[9]) { swap = data[4]; data[4] = data[9]; data[9] = swap; }
    if (data[0] > data[3]) { swap = data[0]; data[0] = data[3]; data[3] = swap; }
    if (data[5] > data[8]) { swap = data[5]; data[5] = data[8]; data[8] = swap; }
    if (data[1] > data[4]) { swap = data[1]; data[1] = data[4]; data[4] = swap; }
    if (data[6] > data[9]) { swap = data[6]; data[6] = data[9]; data[9] = swap; }
    if (data[0] > data[2]) { swap = data[0]; data[0] = data[2]; data[2] = swap; }
    if (data[3] > data[6]) { swap = data[3]; data[3] = data[6]; data[6] = swap; }
    if (data[7] > data[9]) { swap = data[7]; data[7] = data[9]; data[9] = swap; }
    if (data[0] > data[1]) { swap = data[0]; data[0] = data[1]; data[1] = swap; }
    if (data[2] > data[4]) { swap = data[2]; data[2] = data[4]; data[4] = swap; }
    if (data[5] > data[7]) { swap = data[5]; data[5] = data[7]; data[7] = swap; }
    if (data[8] > data[9]) { swap = data[8]; data[8] = data[9]; data[9] = swap; }
    if (data[1] > data[2]) { swap = data[1]; data[1] = data[2]; data[2] = swap; }
    if (data[3] > data[5]) { swap = data[3]; data[3] = data[5]; data[5] = swap; }
    if (data[4] > data[6]) { swap = data[4]; data[4] = data[6]; data[6] = swap; }
    if (data[7] > data[8]) { swap = data[7]; data[7] = data[8]; data[8] = swap; }
    if (data[1] > data[3]) { swap = data[1]; data[1] = data[3]; data[3] = swap; }
    if (data[4] > data[7]) { swap = data[4]; data[4] = data[7]; data[7] = swap; }
    if (data[2] > data[5]) { swap = data[2]; data[2] = data[5]; data[5] = swap; }
    if (data[6] > data[8]) { swap = data[6]; data[6] = data[8]; data[8] = swap; }
    if (data[2] > data[3]) { swap = data[2]; data[2] = data[3]; data[3] = swap; }
    if (data[4] > data[5]) { swap = data[4]; data[4] = data[5]; data[5] = swap; }
    if (data[6] > data[7]) { swap = data[6]; data[6] = data[7]; data[7] = swap; }
    if (data[3] > data[4]) { swap = data[3]; data[3] = data[4]; data[4] = swap; }
    if (data[5] > data[6]) { swap = data[5]; data[5] = data[6]; data[6] = swap; }
    return(data);
}

alert(sortNet10([5,7,1,8,4,3,6,9,2,0]));

Here's a graphical representation of the network, divided into independent phases.

To take advantage of parallel processing, the 5-4-3-4-4-4-3-2 grouping can be changed into a 4-4-4-4-4-4-3-2 grouping.