Oscillating merge sort

Oscillating merge sort or oscillating sort is a variation of merge sort used with tape drives that can read backwards. Instead of doing a complete distribution as is done in a tape merge, the distribution of the input and the merging of runs are interspersed. The oscillating merge sort does not waste rewind time or have tape drives sit idle as in the conventional tape merge.

The oscillating merge sort "was designed for tapes that can be read backward and is more efficient generally than either the polyphase or cascade merges."^[1]

References

↑ Bradley 1982, p. 190

Bradley, James (1982), File and Data Base Techniques, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ISBN 0-03-058673-9
Flores, Ivan (1969), Computer Sorting, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 978-0-13165746-5
Knuth, D. E. (1975), Sorting and Searching, The Art of Computer Programming 3, Addison Wesley
Lowden, B. G. T., "A note on the oscillating sort" (PDF), The Computer Journal 20 (1): 92, doi:10.1093/comjnl/20.1.92
Martin, W. A. (1971), "Sorting", Computing Surveys (ACM)
Sobel, Sheldon (July 1962), "Oscillating Sort–A New Sort Merging Technique", Journal of the ACM (New York, NY: ACM) 9 (3): 372–374, doi:10.1145/321127.321133

Sorting algorithms

Theory	Computational complexity theory Big O notation Total order Lists Inplacement Stability Comparison sort Adaptive sort Sorting network Integer sorting X + Y sorting Transdichotomous model Quantum sort

Exchange sorts	Bubble sort Cocktail shaker sort Odd–even sort Comb sort Gnome sort Quicksort Stooge sort Bogosort

Selection sorts	Selection sort Heapsort Smoothsort Cartesian tree sort Tournament sort Cycle sort

Insertion sorts	Insertion sort Shellsort Splaysort Tree sort Library sort Patience sorting

Merge sorts	Merge sort Cascade merge sort Oscillating merge sort Polyphase merge sort

Distribution sorts	American flag sort Bead sort Bucket sort Burstsort Counting sort Pigeonhole sort Proxmap sort Radix sort Flashsort

Concurrent sorts	Bitonic sorter Batcher odd–even mergesort Pairwise sorting network

Hybrid sorts	Block sort Timsort Introsort Spreadsort

Other	Topological sorting Pancake sorting Spaghetti sort

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