Comb Sort is mainly an improvement over Bubble Sort. Bubble sort always compares adjacent values. So all inversions are removed one by one. Comb Sort improves on Bubble Sort by using a gap of the size of more than 1. The gap starts with a large value and shrinks by a factor of 1.3 in every iteration until it reaches the value 1. Thus Comb Sort removes more than one inversion count with one swap and performs better than Bubble Sort.
The shrink factor has been empirically found to be 1.3 (by testing Combsort on over 200,000 random lists) [Source: Wiki]
Although it works better than Bubble Sort on average, worst-case remains O(n2).
Flowchart
Flowchart
Below is the implementation.
C++
// C++ implementation of Comb Sort
#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
// To find gap between elements
int getNextGap(int gap)
{
// Shrink gap by Shrink factor
gap = (gap*10)/13;
if (gap < 1)
return 1;
return gap;
}
// Function to sort a[0..n-1] using Comb Sort
void combSort(int a[], int n)
{
// Initialize gap
int gap = n;
// Initialize swapped as true to make sure that
// loop runs
bool swapped = true;
// Keep running while gap is more than 1 and last
// iteration caused a swap
while (gap != 1 || swapped == true)
{
// Find next gap
gap = getNextGap(gap);
// Initialize swapped as false so that we can
// check if swap happened or not
swapped = false;
// Compare all elements with current gap
for (int i=0; i<n-gap; i++)
{
if (a[i] > a[i+gap])
{
swap(a[i], a[i+gap]);
swapped = true;
}
}
}
}
// Driver program
int main()
{
int a[] = {8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0};
int n = sizeof(a)/sizeof(a[0]);
combSort(a, n);
printf("Sorted array: \n");
for (int i=0; i<n; i++)
printf("%d ", a[i]);
return 0;
}
// Java program for implementation of Comb Sort
import java.io.*;
public class CombSort
{
// To find gap between elements
int getNextGap(int gap)
{
// Shrink gap by Shrink factor
gap = (gap*10)/13;
if (gap < 1)
return 1;
return gap;
}
// Function to sort arr[] using Comb Sort
void sort(int arr[])
{
int n = arr.length;
// initialize gap
int gap = n;
// Initialize swapped as true to make sure that
// loop runs
boolean swapped = true;
// Keep running while gap is more than 1 and last
// iteration caused a swap
while (gap != 1 || swapped == true)
{
// Find next gap
gap = getNextGap(gap);
// Initialize swapped as false so that we can
// check if swap happened or not
swapped = false;
// Compare all elements with current gap
for (int i=0; i<n-gap; i++)
{
if (arr[i] > arr[i+gap])
{
// Swap arr[i] and arr[i+gap]
int temp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[i+gap];
arr[i+gap] = temp;
// Set swapped
swapped = true;
}
}
}
}
// Driver method
public static void main(String args[])
{
CombSort ob = new CombSort();
int arr[] = {8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0};
ob.sort(arr);
System.out.println("sorted array");
for (int i=0; i<arr.length; ++i)
System.out.print(arr[i] + " ");
}
}
/* This code is contributed by Rajat Mishra */
# Python program for implementation of CombSort
# To find next gap from current
def getNextGap(gap):
# Shrink gap by Shrink factor
gap = (gap * 10)//13
if gap < 1:
return 1
return gap
# Function to sort arr[] using Comb Sort
def combSort(arr):
n = len(arr)
# Initialize gap
gap = n
# Initialize swapped as true to make sure that
# loop runs
swapped = True
# Keep running while gap is more than 1 and last
# iteration caused a swap
while gap !=1 or swapped == 1:
# Find next gap
gap = getNextGap(gap)
# Initialize swapped as false so that we can
# check if swap happened or not
swapped = False
# Compare all elements with current gap
for i in range(0, n-gap):
if arr[i] > arr[i + gap]:
arr[i], arr[i + gap]=arr[i + gap], arr[i]
swapped = True
# Driver code to test above
arr = [8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0]
combSort(arr)
print ("Sorted array:")
for i in range(len(arr)):
print (arr[i],end=" ")
# This code is contributed by Mohit Kumra
// C# program for implementation of Comb Sort
using System;
class GFG
{
// To find gap between elements
static int getNextGap(int gap)
{
// Shrink gap by Shrink factor
gap = (gap*10)/13;
if (gap < 1)
return 1;
return gap;
}
// Function to sort arr[] using Comb Sort
static void sort(int []arr)
{
int n = arr.Length;
// initialize gap
int gap = n;
// Initialize swapped as true to
// make sure that loop runs
bool swapped = true;
// Keep running while gap is more than
// 1 and last iteration caused a swap
while (gap != 1 || swapped == true)
{
// Find next gap
gap = getNextGap(gap);
// Initialize swapped as false so that we can
// check if swap happened or not
swapped = false;
// Compare all elements with current gap
for (int i=0; i<n-gap; i++)
{
if (arr[i] > arr[i+gap])
{
// Swap arr[i] and arr[i+gap]
int temp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[i+gap];
arr[i+gap] = temp;
// Set swapped
swapped = true;
}
}
}
}
// Driver method
public static void Main()
{
int []arr = {8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0};
sort(arr);
Console.WriteLine("sorted array");
for (int i=0; i<arr.Length; ++i)
Console.Write(arr[i] + " ");
}
}
// This code is contributed by Sam007
<script>
// Javascript program for implementation of Comb Sort
// To find gap between elements
function getNextGap(gap)
{
// Shrink gap by Shrink factor
gap = parseInt((gap*10)/13, 10);
if (gap < 1)
return 1;
return gap;
}
// Function to sort arr[] using Comb Sort
function sort(arr)
{
let n = arr.length;
// initialize gap
let gap = n;
// Initialize swapped as true to
// make sure that loop runs
let swapped = true;
// Keep running while gap is more than
// 1 and last iteration caused a swap
while (gap != 1 || swapped == true)
{
// Find next gap
gap = getNextGap(gap);
// Initialize swapped as false so that we can
// check if swap happened or not
swapped = false;
// Compare all elements with current gap
for (let i=0; i<n-gap; i++)
{
if (arr[i] > arr[i+gap])
{
// Swap arr[i] and arr[i+gap]
let temp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[i+gap];
arr[i+gap] = temp;
// Set swapped
swapped = true;
}
}
}
}
let arr = [8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0];
sort(arr);
document.write("sorted array" + "</br>");
for (let i=0; i<arr.length; ++i)
document.write(arr[i] + " ");
// This code is contributed by decode2207
</script>
OutputSorted array:
-44 -6 0 1 3 4 8 23 28 56
Illustration:Â
Let the array elements beÂ
8, 4, 1, 56, 3, -44, 23, -6, 28, 0
Initially gap value = 10Â
After shrinking gap value => 10/1.3 = 7;Â
8 4 1 56 3 -44 23 -6 28 0
-6 4 1 56 3 -44 23 8 28 0
-6 4 0 56 3 -44 23 8 28 1
New gap value => 7/1.3 = 5;Â Â
-44 4 0 56 3 -6 23 8 28 1
-44 4 0 28 3 -6 23 8 56 1
-44 4 0 28 1 -6 23 8 56 3
New gap value => 5/1.3 = 3;Â
-44 1 0 28 4 -6 23 8 56 3
-44 1 -6 28 4 0 23 8 56 3
-44 1 -6 23 4 0 28 8 56 3
-44 1 -6 23 4 0 3 8 56 28
New gap value => 3/1.3 = 2;Â Â
-44 1 -6 0 4 23 3 8 56 28
-44 1 -6 0 3 23 4 8 56 28
-44 1 -6 0 3 8 4 23 56 28
New gap value => 2/1.3 = 1;Â Â
-44 -6 1 0 3 8 4 23 56 28
-44 -6 0 1 3 8 4 23 56 28
-44 -6 0 1 3 4 8 23 56 28
-44 -6 0 1 3 4 8 23 28 56
no more swaps required (Array sorted)
Time Complexity: Average case time complexity of the algorithm is Ω(N2/2p), where p is the number of increments. The worst-case complexity of this algorithm is O(n2) and the Best Case complexity is O(nlogn).Â
Auxiliary Space : O(1).Â
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Snapshots:Â Â
Other Sorting Algorithms on GeeksforGeeks/GeeksQuizÂ
Selection Sort, Bubble Sort, Insertion Sort, Merge Sort, Heap Sort, QuickSort, Radix Sort, Counting Sort, Bucket Sort, ShellSort, Pigeonhole Sort
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