Counting Sort Algorithm in DSA Javascript - Build from Scratch

Counting Sort Algorithm

📖 Scenario: You work in a warehouse where boxes are labeled with numbers from 0 to 9. You want to organize the boxes quickly by their labels.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that sorts an array of box labels using the counting sort algorithm.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called boxes with the exact values: [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1]

Create an array called count with 10 zeros to count occurrences of each label

Use a for loop with variable label to count each label in boxes

Create an array called sortedBoxes to store the sorted result

Use nested for loops with variables number and i to build sortedBoxes

Print sortedBoxes to show the sorted labels

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Counting sort is useful in warehouses or factories where items have labels within a small range and need fast sorting.

💼 Career

Understanding counting sort helps in roles involving data processing, inventory management, and algorithm optimization.

1

Create the initial array of box labels

Create an array called boxes with these exact values: [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1]

DSA Javascript

# Your code here

Hint

Use const boxes = [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1]; to create the array.

2

Create the count array to hold label counts

Create an array called count with 10 zeros to count occurrences of each label

DSA Javascript

const boxes = [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1];
// Your code here

Hint

Use new Array(10).fill(0) to create an array of ten zeros.

3

Count the occurrences of each label

Use a for loop with variable label to increase the count for each label in boxes

DSA Javascript

const boxes = [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1];
const count = new Array(10).fill(0);
// Your code here

Hint

Use for (const label of boxes) and increase count[label] by 1 inside the loop.

4

Build the sorted array and print it

Create an empty array called sortedBoxes. Use nested for loops with variables number and i to add each label to sortedBoxes according to its count. Then print sortedBoxes.

DSA Javascript

const boxes = [4, 2, 2, 8, 3, 3, 1];
const count = new Array(10).fill(0);
for (const label of boxes) {
    count[label] += 1;
}
// Your code here

Hint

Use two loops: outer loop over count indexes, inner loop to push the number count[number] times into sortedBoxes. Then print sortedBoxes.