Haskell's website introduces a very attractive 5-line quicksort function, as seen below.
quicksort [] = []
quicksort (p:xs) = (quicksort lesser) ++ [p] ++ (quicksort greater)
where
lesser = filter (< p) xs
greater = filter (>= p) xs
They also include a "True quicksort in C".
// To sort array a[] of size n: qsort(a,0,n-1)
void qsort(int a[], int lo, int hi)
{
int h, l, p, t;
if (lo < hi) {
l = lo;
h = hi;
p = a[hi];
do {
while ((l < h) && (a[l] <= p))
l = l+1;
while ((h > l) && (a[h] >= p))
h = h-1;
if (l < h) {
t = a[l];
a[l] = a[h];
a[h] = t;
}
} while (l < h);
a[hi] = a[l];
a[l] = p;
qsort( a, lo, l-1 );
qsort( a, l+1, hi );
}
}
A link below the C version directs to a page that states 'The quicksort quoted in Introduction isn't the "real" quicksort and doesn't scale for longer lists like the c code does.'
Why is the above Haskell function not a true quicksort? How does it fail to scale for longer lists?
The true quicksort has two beautiful aspects:
The short Haskell example demonstrates (1), but not (2). How (2) is done may not be obvious if you don't already know the technique!