Heap Sort Algorithm
Heap Sort is a popular and efficient sorting algorithm in
computer programming. Learning how to write the heap sort
algorithm requires knowledge of two types of data structures
- arrays and trees.
The initial set of numbers that we want to sort is stored in an
array e.g. [10, 3, 76, 34, 23, 32] and after sorting, we get a
sorted array [3,10,23,32,34,76]
Heap sort works by visualizing the elements of the array as
a special kind of complete binary tree called a heap.
As a prerequisite, you must know about
a complete binary tree and heap data structure.
Relationship between Array Indexes and
Tree Elements
A complete binary tree has an interesting property that we
can use to find the children and parents of any node.
If the index of any element in the array is i, the element in
the index 2i+1 will become the left child and element
in 2i+2 index will become the right child. Also, the parent of
any element at index i is given by the lower bound of (i-1)/2.
Relationship between array and heap indices
Left child of 1 (index 0)
= element in (2*0+1) index
= element in 1 index
= 12
Right child of 1
= element in (2*0+2) index
= element in 2 index
= 9
Similarly,
Left child of 12 (index 1)
= element in (2*1+1) index
= element in 3 index
= 5
Right child of 12
= element in (2*1+2) index
= element in 4 index
= 6
Let us also confirm that the rules hold for finding parent of any
node
Parent of 9 (position 2)
= (2-1)/2
= ½
= 0.5
~ 0 index
= 1
Parent of 12 (position 1)
= (1-1)/2
= 0 index
= 1
# What is Heap Data Structure?
Heap is a special tree-based data structure. A binary tree is said
to follow a heap data structure if
it is a complete binary tree
All nodes in the tree follow the property that they are greater than
their children i.e. the largest element is at the root and both its
children and smaller than the root and so on. Such a heap is
called a max-heap. If instead, all nodes are smaller than their
children, it is called a min-heap
The following example diagram shows Max-Heap and Min-Heap.
Max Heap and
Min Heap
How to "heapify" a tree
Starting from a complete binary tree, we can modify it to
become a Max-Heap by running a function called heapify on
all the non-leaf elements of the heap.
Heapify uses recursion. Example to heapify a tree with just
three elements.
heapify(array)
Root = array[0]
Largest = largest( array[0] , array [2*0 + 1]. array[2*0+2])
if(Root != Largest)
Swap(Root, Largest)
Heapify base cases
The example above shows two scenarios - one in which the
root is the largest element and we don't need to do anything.
And another in which the root had a larger element as a
child and we needed to swap to maintain max-heap
property.
If you're worked with recursive algorithms before, you've
probably identified that this must be the base case.
Now let's think of another scenario in which there is more
than one level.
How to heapify root element when its subtrees are already max heaps
The top element isn't a max-heap but all the sub-trees are
max-heaps.
To maintain the max-heap property for the entire tree, we
will have to keep pushing 2 downwards until it reaches its
correct position.
How to heapify root element when its subtrees are max-heaps
Thus, to maintain the max-heap property in a tree where
both sub-trees are max-heaps, we need to run heapify on
the root element repeatedly until it is larger than its children
or it becomes a leaf node.
We can combine both these conditions in one heapify
function as
void heapify(int arr[], int n, int i) {
// Find largest among root, left child and right child
int largest = i;
int left = 2 * i + 1;
int right = 2 * i + 2;
if (left < n && arr[left] > arr[largest])
largest = left;
if (right < n && arr[right] > arr[largest])
largest = right;
// Swap and continue heapifying if root is not largest
if (largest != i) {
swap(&arr[i], &arr[largest]);
heapify(arr, n, largest);
}
}
This function works for both the base case and for a tree of
any size. We can thus move the root element to the correct
position to maintain the max-heap status for any tree size as
long as the sub-trees are max-heaps.
Build max-heap
To build a max-heap from any tree, we can thus start
heapifying each sub-tree from the bottom up and end up
with a max-heap after the function is applied to all the
elements including the root element.
In the case of a complete tree, the first index of a non-leaf
node is given by n/2 - 1. All other nodes after that are leaf-
nodes and thus don't need to be heapified.
So, we can build a maximum heap as
// Build heap (rearrange array)
for (int i = n / 2 - 1; i >= 0; i--)
heapify(arr, n, i);
Create array and calculate i
Steps to build max heap for heap sort
Steps to build max heap for heap sort
Steps to build max heap for heap sort
As shown in the above diagram, we start by heapifying the
lowest smallest trees and gradually move up until we reach
the root element.
How Heap Sort Works?
1. Since the tree satisfies Max-Heap property, then the largest item
is stored at the root node.
2. Swap: Remove the root element and put at the end of the array
(nth position) Put the last item of the tree (heap) at the vacant
place.
3. Remove: Reduce the size of the heap by 1.
4. Heapify: Heapify the root element again so that we have the
highest element at root.
5. The process is repeated until all the items of the list are sorted.
Swap, Remove, and Heapify
Heap Sort Complexity
Heap Sort has O(nlog n) time complexities for all the cases ( best
case, average case, and worst case).
Let us understand the reason why. The height of a complete binary
tree containing n elements is log n
As we have seen earlier, to fully heapify an element whose subtrees
are already max-heaps, we need to keep comparing the element with
its left and right children and pushing it downwards until it reaches a
point where both its children are smaller than it.
In the worst case scenario, we will need to move an element from the
root to the leaf node making a multiple of log(n) comparisons and
swaps.
During the build_max_heap stage, we do that for n/2 elements so the
worst case complexity of the build_heap step is n/2*log n ~ nlog n.
During the sorting step, we exchange the root element with the last
element and heapify the root element. For each element, this again
takes log n worst time because we might have to bring the element
all the way from the root to the leaf. Since we repeat this n times, the
heap_sort step is also nlog n.
Also since the build_max_heap and heap_sort steps are executed one
after another, the algorithmic complexity is not multiplied and it
remains in the order of nlog n.
