cs3003insertsortLectureGuide

Insertion Sort

Lecture outline

Context setting

Unit 4 -> Lists, Tuples and Dictionaries -> Illustrative Programs

  • It is very important to use a data type in a real-world case, to understand its true value and benefit.

  • We are covering three types of sorts

    • Comparison Algorithms - Insertion Sort and Selection Sort

    • Divide and Conquer Algorithms - Merge Sort, Quick Sort

Agenda

  • Over the next 20 minutes, we shall see how lists can be used to implement InsertionSort

  • SHOW and TELL - Show Example, And Tell Theory

    • versus Tell Theory, Show Example

    • a more effective style to create engagement

      • VERY VERY effective when you students participate

      • Even more effective when students KNOW something already

Pre-req quiz

- Are you ready?
	- Do you know something already
	- Known to Unknown

  • What is the code to iterate over all the elements in a list?

  • What is the code to iterate over all the elements in a list, starting from the 2nd element in the list?

  • If al= [11, 12, 13, 14, 15], and al[2] = 15 are executed, what will be al contain?

  • If you have more time, http://j.mp/insertTDD

  • Finish the http://bit.ly/insortCC

    • http://bit.ly/insortVideoKey

Show of hands as to many of you students reviewed all the above questions and have answers written down in your notebooks? - best practice of a engineering student is to come prepared for the class. You must spend at least 2 hours reviewing the material taught in class, and preparing for the class

Use a Pack of Cards

http://j.mp/compareSort - the first 35 seconds of the video

Interactive Coding

Stage 0

  • Manual sorting, like you were to sort a list of cards

    • use a custom built insort function

Stage 1

  1. Define an iteration through the list, and do this for every element in the list

  2. Initialize the right variables and execute the code

  3. Place the entire code inside inside a function definition and call it insertionsort

Stage 2

Understanding how to write the insort function which is used in insertionsort using the CloudCoder exercise http://j.mp/insortCC

Insertion Sort Description

  • In insertionsort, given a key, a copy of a pre-determined element in the list, we insert it at the appropriate location after comparing it with the unsorted elements of the list. We do this repeatedly for all the elements in the list.

Pseudo Code

Have seen the example, it becomes very easy to define the pseudo code for InsertionSort

mark first element as sorted
for each unsorted element X
	'extract' the element X as 'key'
	insert key at the relevant index so list remains sorted
return sorted list

More detailed pseudo-code:

mark first element as sorted
for each unsorted element X
  extract the element X
  for j = lastSortedIndex (position -1) down to 0
    if current element j > X
      decrement j by 1
    else break loop and insert X here
return sorted list

Source Code

The Python code to implement the pseudo code above:

def insertionsort(alist):
    '''insertionsort algorithm implemented
    using insort function
    '''
    for i in range(1, len(alist)):
        key = alist[i]
        insort(alist, key, i)
        print("inter", alist)
    return alist

def insort(alist, key, j):
    '''insort inserts 'key' into the
    sorted alist[:j] so that it remains sorted
    'j' is the current index of 'key' in alist
    '''
    while j > 0 and alist[j-1] > key:
        alist[j] = alist[j-1]
        j -= 1
    alist[j] = key

The following code can be used to test the above code:

# Test case using random shuffle
from random import shuffle
alist = list(range(11, 19))
shuffle(alist)
print("Unsorted", alist)
print("Sorted", insertionsort(alist))

Summary

  1. We incrementally developed InsertionSort in a "manual mode"

  2. We arrived at the pseudo code

  3. We wrote the equivalent code for InsertionSort

Last 2 Minute

  • respond to Questions from Students

    • review the relevant Question Paper snippets

    • Ask 1 or more students questions from Pre-requisites

  • Practice insertionsort at http://j.mp/insertionSortCC

    • The million insert challenge http://j.mp/millionInsert

  • Review http://j.mp/selectVisual for the next class

Program File for Demo

Modify this file as you deem fit to demonstrate on PythonAnywhere.com or on the mu editor

  • This is the script I use in my sample video http://bit.ly/insertSortVideo2

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