Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone would be able to take a look at this code for implementing the quicksort algorithm and answer me a few questions, please :-)

public class Run
{
  /***************************************************************************
   * Quicksort code from Sedgewick 7.1, 7.2.
   **************************************************************************/
  public static void quicksort(double[] a)
  {
    //shuffle(a); // to guard against worst-case
    quicksort(a, 0, a.length - 1, 0);
  }

  static void quicksort(final double[] a, final int left, final int right, final int tdepth)
  {
    if (right <= left)
      return;
    final int i = partition(a, left, right);

    if ((tdepth < 4) && ((i - left) > 1000))
    {
      final Thread t = new Thread()
      {
        public void run()
        {
          quicksort(a, left, i - 1, tdepth + 1);
        }
      };
      t.start();
      quicksort(a, i + 1, right, tdepth + 1);

      try
      {
        t.join();
      }
      catch (InterruptedException e)
      {
        throw new RuntimeException("Cancelled", e);
      }
    } else
    {
      quicksort(a, left, i - 1, tdepth);
      quicksort(a, i + 1, right, tdepth);
    }
  }

  // partition a[left] to a[right], assumes left < right
  private static int partition(double[] a, int left, int right)
  {
    int i = left - 1;
    int j = right;
    while (true)
    {
      while (less(a[++i], a[right]))
        // find item on left to swap
        ; // a[right] acts as sentinel
      while (less(a[right], a[--j]))
        // find item on right to swap
        if (j == left)
          break; // don't go out-of-bounds
      if (i >= j)
        break; // check if pointers cross
      exch(a, i, j); // swap two elements into place
    }
    exch(a, i, right); // swap with partition element
    return i;
  }

  // is x < y ?
  private static boolean less(double x, double y)
  {
    return (x < y);
  }

  // exchange a[i] and a[j]
  private static void exch(double[] a, int i, int j)
  {
    double swap = a[i];
    a[i] = a[j];
    a[j] = swap;
  }

  // shuffle the array a[]
  private static void shuffle(double[] a)
  {
    int N = a.length;
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
    {
      int r = i + (int) (Math.random() * (N - i)); // between i and N-1
      exch(a, i, r);
    }
  }

  // test client
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    int N = 5000000; // Integer.parseInt(args[0]);

    // generate N random real numbers between 0 and 1
    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    double[] a = new double[N];
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
      a[i] = Math.random();
    long stop = System.currentTimeMillis();
    double elapsed = (stop - start) / 1000.0;
    System.out.println("Generating input:  " + elapsed + " seconds");

    // sort them
    start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    quicksort(a);
    stop = System.currentTimeMillis();
    elapsed = (stop - start) / 1000.0;
    System.out.println("Quicksort:   " + elapsed + " seconds");

  }
}

My questions are:

1. What is the purpose of the variable tdepth?

2. Is this considered a "proper" implementation of a parallel quicksort? I ask becuase it doesn't use implements Runnable or extends Thread...

3. If it doesn't already, is it possible to modify this code to use multiple threads? By passing in the number of threads you want to use as a parameter, for example...?

Many thanks,

Brian