Java Program for QuickSort

Like Merge Sort, QuickSort is a Divide and Conquer algorithm. It picks an element as pivot and partitions the given array around the picked pivot. There are many different versions of quickSort that pick pivot in different ways.

1. Always pick first element as pivot.
2. Always pick last element as pivot (implemented below)
3. Pick a random element as pivot.
4. Pick median as pivot.

The key process in quickSort is partition(). Target of partitions is, given an array and an element x of array as pivot, put x at its correct position in sorted array and put all smaller elements (smaller than x) before x, and put all greater elements (greater than x) after x. All this should be done in linear time. Pseudo Code for recursive QuickSort function :

/* low  --> Starting index,  high  --> Ending index */
quickSort(arr[], low, high)
{
    if (low < high)
    {
        /* pi is partitioning index, arr[p] is now
           at right place */
        pi = partition(arr, low, high);

        quickSort(arr, low, pi - 1);  // Before pi
        quickSort(arr, pi + 1, high); // After pi
    }
}

Java

// Java program for implementation of QuickSort
class QuickSort
{
    /* This function takes last element as pivot,
       places the pivot element at its correct
       position in sorted array, and places all
       smaller (smaller than pivot) to left of
       pivot and all greater elements to right
       of pivot */
    int partition(int arr[], int low, int high)
    {
        int pivot = arr[high];
        int i = (low-1); // index of smaller element
        for (int j=low; j<high; j++)
        {
            // If current element is smaller than or
            // equal to pivot
            if (arr[j] <= pivot)
            {
                i++;

                // swap arr[i] and arr[j]
                int temp = arr[i];
                arr[i] = arr[j];
                arr[j] = temp;
            }
        }

        // swap arr[i+1] and arr[high] (or pivot)
        int temp = arr[i+1];
        arr[i+1] = arr[high];
        arr[high] = temp;

        return i+1;
    }


    /* The main function that implements QuickSort()
      arr[] --> Array to be sorted,
      low  --> Starting index,
      high  --> Ending index */
    void sort(int arr[], int low, int high)
    {
        if (low < high)
        {
            /* pi is partitioning index, arr[pi] is
              now at right place */
            int pi = partition(arr, low, high);

            // Recursively sort elements before
            // partition and after partition
            sort(arr, low, pi-1);
            sort(arr, pi+1, high);
        }
    }

    /* A utility function to print array of size n */
    static void printArray(int arr[])
    {
        int n = arr.length;
        for (int i=0; i<n; ++i)
            System.out.print(arr[i]+" ");
        System.out.println();
    }

    // Driver program
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        int arr[] = {10, 7, 8, 9, 1, 5};
        int n = arr.length;

        QuickSort ob = new QuickSort();
        ob.sort(arr, 0, n-1);

        System.out.println("sorted array");
        printArray(arr);
    }
}
/*This code is contributed by Rajat Mishra */

Time Complexity: Worst case time complexity is O(N2) and average case time complexity is O(N logN)

Auxiliary Space: O(1)

Please refer complete article on QuickSort for more details!