Selecting K Smallest or Largest Elements
Another fundamental selection problem is that of selecting the k smallest or k largest elements, which is particularly useful where we want to present just the "top k" of an unsorted list, such as the top 100 corporations by gross sales. This is also commonly called partial sorting.
Read more about this topic: Selection Algorithm
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—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
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—David Hume (1711–1776)