Python Program for Counting Sort

In this article, we will learn about the solution to the problem statement given below.

Problem statement− We are given an array, we need to sort the array using the concept of counting sort.

Counting sort is a technique in which we work on keys between a specific range. It involves counting the number of objects which have distinct key & values. Finally, we do arithmetic calculations to obtain the position of each object and display the output.

Now let’s observe the solution in the implementation below −

Example

 Live Demo

def countSort(arr):
   # The output character array that will have sorted arr
   output = [0 for i in range(256)]
   # Create a count array initialized with 0
   count = [0 for i in range(256)]
   # as strings are immutable
   ans = ["" for _ in arr]
   # count
   for i in arr:
      count[ord(i)] += 1
   # position of character in the output array
   for i in range(256):
      count[i] += count[i-1]
   # output character array
   for i in range(len(arr)):
      output[count[ord(arr[i])]-1] = arr[i]
      count[ord(arr[i])] -= 1
   # array of sorted charcters
   for i in range(len(arr)):
      ans[i] = output[i]
   return ans
# main
arr = "Tutorialspoint"
ans = countSort(arr)
print ("Sorted character array is "+str("".join(ans)))

Output −

Sorted character array is Taiilnooprsttu

All the variables are declared in the local scope and their references are seen in the figure above.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned about how we can make a Python Program for Counting Sort