Natural Merge Sort
A natural merge sort is similar to a bottom up merge sort except that any naturally occurring runs (sorted sequences) in the input are exploited. In the bottom up merge sort, the starting point assumes each run is one item long. In practice, random input data will have many short runs that just happen to be sorted. In the typical case, the natural merge sort may not need as many passes because there are fewer runs to merge. For example, in the best case, the input is already sorted (i.e., is one run), so the natural merge sort need only make one pass through the data.
Read more about this topic: Merge Sort
Famous quotes containing the words natural, merge and/or sort:
“We are frequently told that talents and genius are natural gifts; and so indeed they are, to the same extent that the productions of the garden and the field are natural gifts.”
—U. R., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 317-19 (June, 1829)
“In good company, the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)