Insertion sort

An insertion sort is a very simple algorithm that looks at an object in a collection and compares its key to the keys prior to itself. You can visualize this process as how many of us order a hand of playing cards, individually removing and inserting cards from left to right in ascending order.

For example, consider the case of ordering a collection in ascending order. An insertion sort algorithm will examine an object at index i and determine if it's key is lower in value or priority than the object at index i - 1. If so, the object at i is removed and inserted at i - 1. At this point, the function will repeat and continue to loop in this manner until the object key at i - 1 is not lower than the object key at i.

Given the following ...

Get Everyday Data Structures now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.