From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2005-03-17T12:09:19+09:00
Subject: Stable sort?

Questions for you guys...

Correct my terminology and/or my perceptions if they
are mistaken.

1. I think the term "stable sort" is used for a sorting
algorithm that preserves the relative order of records
that have the same key -- correct?

2. Further I believe that such an algorithm could be used
to implement multi-key sorts as "chained" sorts -- correct?
      people.sort(:name).sort(:age).sort(:height)

3. Further I believe that Ruby's standard sort is not
stable. (Isn't it a quicksort-like thing?)


Given that, what is a good stable sort algorithm? Would
it be too inefficient to implement in Ruby or no?


Thanks,
Hal