Stooge sort is a recursive sorting algorithm. It is notable for its exceptionally poor time complexity The algorithm's running time is thus slower compared to reasonable sorting algorithms, and is slower than bubble sort, a canonical example of a fairly inefficient sort. It is, however, more efficient than Slowsort. The name comes from The Three Stooges.

The algorithm is defined as follows:

• If the value at the start is larger than the value at the end, swap them.

If there are three or more elements in the list, then:

• Stooge sort the initial 2/3 of the list

• Stooge sort the final 2/3 of the list

• Stooge sort the initial 2/3 of the list again

It is important to get the integer sort size used in the recursive calls by rounding the 2/3 upwards, e.g. rounding 2/3 of 5 should give 4 rather than 3, as otherwise the sort can fail on certain data.

Implementation

Pseudocode

References

Sources

External links

• Sorting Algorithms (including Stooge sort)

• Stooge sort – implementation and comparison