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From: ark@research.att.com (Andrew Koenig)
Subject: Re: Mergesort: why's it efficient?
Message-ID: <E1ouwy.1JC@research.att.com>
Organization: AT&T Research, Murray Hill NJ
References: <57hi6b$r68@news.utdallas.edu> <57hp2k$ghm@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <57j5dh$sh3$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 14:58:09 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.sys.mac.programmer.help:44340 comp.lang.lisp:23984 comp.lang.c++:230472

In article <57j5dh$sh3$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:

> Anyone who is sure that O(N) expected time sorting cannot be done
> for realistic problems, in the absence of prior knowledge of the
> distribution, is certainly wrong.

For realistic problems, there is little difference between O(N)
and O(N log N), because there is usually a constant upper bound
on N (for example, the number of possible values of a pointer).
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@research.att.com
