Comparison Based vs Non Comparison Based Sorting in DSA C++ - Build Both Approaches

Comparison Based vs Non Comparison Based Sorting

📖 Scenario: You work in a warehouse where you need to organize boxes by their weights. Some boxes have small weights (0 to 9 kg), and others have larger weights. You want to sort these boxes quickly using two different methods: one that compares boxes directly and one that uses their weight values without direct comparison.

🎯 Goal: Build two sorting methods in C++: one using comparison-based sorting (Bubble Sort) and one using non-comparison-based sorting (Counting Sort). See how they sort the same list of box weights.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called boxes with these exact weights: 4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 2, 3, 0, 9, 1

Create an integer variable called size that stores the number of boxes

Write a function called bubbleSort that sorts the boxes array using comparison-based sorting

Write a function called countingSort that sorts the boxes array using non-comparison-based sorting

Print the sorted arrays after each sorting method

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Sorting items quickly is important in warehouses, online stores, and many apps to organize data efficiently.

💼 Career

Understanding different sorting methods helps in choosing the right algorithm for performance in software development and data processing jobs.

1

Create the boxes array

Create an integer array called boxes with these exact weights: 4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 2, 3, 0, 9, 1 and an integer variable called size that stores the number of boxes.

DSA C++

// Your code here

Hint

Use int boxes[] = {4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 2, 3, 0, 9, 1}; to create the array and int size = sizeof(boxes) / sizeof(boxes[0]); to get its length.

2

Write the bubbleSort function

Write a function called bubbleSort that takes an integer array arr and its size as parameters and sorts the array using comparison-based bubble sort.

DSA C++

int boxes[] = {4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 2, 3, 0, 9, 1};
int size = sizeof(boxes) / sizeof(boxes[0]);

// Your code here

Hint

Use two nested loops to compare adjacent elements and swap if the left one is bigger.

3

Write the countingSort function

Write a function called countingSort that takes an integer array arr and its size as parameters and sorts the array using non-comparison-based counting sort. Assume all weights are between 0 and 9.

DSA C++

int boxes[] = {4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 2, 3, 0, 9, 1};
int size = sizeof(boxes) / sizeof(boxes[0]);

void bubbleSort(int arr[], int size) {
    for (int i = 0; i  arr[j + 1]) {
                int temp = arr[j];
                arr[j] = arr[j + 1];
                arr[j + 1] = temp;
            }
        }
    }
}

// Your code here

Hint

Count how many times each weight appears, then overwrite the array with sorted weights.

4

Print sorted arrays after both sorts

Call bubbleSort(boxes, size) and print the sorted array with the label "Bubble Sort:". Then reset boxes to the original array, call countingSort(boxes, size), and print the sorted array with the label "Counting Sort:". Use a for loop with variable i to print elements separated by spaces.

DSA C++

Hint

Call bubbleSort(boxes, size), print the array, reset boxes to original, call countingSort(boxes, size), and print again.