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Next: 0.3.10.1 Modified Radix Sort Up: 0.3 Sorting Algorithms Previous: 0.3.9.1 Analysis

   
0.3.10 The nth Largest

 

The problem of finding the nth-largest (or smallest) item in a set is closely related to the process of sorting. Indeed one way to accomplish this goal is to sort the list and then count off until reaching the item desired. However, as we will see, this is a waste of time as there are many algorithms specifically designed to find nth-largest items faster than the time required to sort and count.



 
Scott Gasch
1999-07-09