Topic summary
Distribution sort
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Sorting algorithm.
Distribution sorts
Distribution sort refers to any sorting algorithm where data is distributed from their input to multiple intermediate structures which are then gathered and placed on the output. For example, both bucket sort and flashsort are distribution-based sorting algorithms. Distribution sorting algorithms can be used on a single processor, or they can be a distributed algorithm, where individual subsets are separately sorted on different processors, then combined. This allows external sorting of data too large to fit into a single computer's memory.