Concepts inAn experimental study of sorting and branch prediction

Branch predictor

In computer architecture, a branch predictor is a digital circuit that tries to guess which way a branch will go before this is known for sure. The purpose of the branch predictor is to improve the flow in the instruction pipeline. Branch predictors are crucial in today's pipelined microprocessors for achieving high performance. Two-way branching is usually implemented with a conditional jump instruction.  more from Wikipedia

Sorting algorithm

In computer science, a sorting algorithm is an algorithm that puts elements of a list in a certain order. The most-used orders are numerical order and lexicographical order. Efficient sorting is important for optimizing the use of other algorithms that require sorted lists to work correctly; it is also often useful for canonicalizing data and for producing human-readable output.  more from Wikipedia

Insertion sort

Insertion sort is a simple sorting algorithm that builds the final sorted array (or list) one item at a time. It is much less efficient on large lists than more advanced algorithms such as quicksort, heapsort, or merge sort. However, insertion sort provides several advantages: Simple implementation Efficient for (quite) small data sets Adaptive (i.e.  more from Wikipedia

Shell sort

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Heapsort

Heapsort is a comparison-based sorting algorithm to create a sorted array (or list), and is part of the selection sort family. Although somewhat slower in practice on most machines than a well-implemented quicksort, it has the advantage of a more favorable worst-case O(n log n) runtime. Heapsort is an in-place algorithm, but is not a stable sort.  more from Wikipedia

Merge sort

Merge sort is an O(n log n) comparison-based sorting algorithm. Most implementations produce a stable sort, which means that the implementation preserves the input order of equal elements in the sorted output. Merge sort is a divide and conquer algorithm that was invented by John von Neumann in 1945. A detailed description and analysis of bottom-up mergesort appeared in a report by Goldstine and Neumann as early as 1948.  more from Wikipedia

Comparison sort

A comparison sort is a type of sorting algorithm that only reads the list elements through a single abstract comparison operation (often a "less than or equal to" operator) that determines which of two elements should occur first in the final sorted list. The only requirement is that the operator obey two of the properties of a total order: if a ¿ b and b ¿ c then a ¿ c (transitivity) for all a and b, either a ¿ b or b ¿ a.  more from Wikipedia