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ksort PushSwap

push_swap

push_swap is a sorting algorithm based on sorting two stacks with the least amount of moves. The allowed moves are:

  • sa (swap a): Swap the first 2 elements at the top of stack a.
  • sb (swap b): Swap the first 2 elements at the top of stack b.
  • ss : sa and sb at the same time.
  • pa (push a): Take the first element at the top of b and put it at the top of a.
  • pb (push b): Take the first element at the top of a and put it at the top of b.
  • ra (rotate a): Shift up all elements of stack a by 1. First becomes last.
  • rb (rotate b): Shift up all elements of stack b by 1. First becomes last.
  • rr : ra and rb at the same time.
  • rra (reverse rotate a): Shift down all elements of stack a by 1. Last becomes first.
  • rrb (reverse rotate b): Shift down all elements of stack b by 1. Last becomes first.
  • rrr : rra and rrb at the same time.

By using these moves, the goal is to sort the numbers in stack A in ascending order, using stack B as a temporary storage.

This algorithm is considered to be one of the simplest sorting algorithm, but it can be quite hard to optimize it and sort a large amount of numbers with a low amount of moves.

The Algorithm:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/56733438/213343838-583f273e-b108-4648-8d9c-8b2b95d1554b.mov

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.