Question

Give an example of how Radix sort works

Answer 1

As an example, let's sort this list : 82, 901, 100, 12, 150, 77, 55, 23

Step1. Simply Define a queue(0 to 9)

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Step 2: Insert all the numbers in the list to queue.Based on the One placed digit of every number

ie. in 0 we insert 100,150 (since their one digit place is 0) , in 1 we insert 901(since their one digit is 1) and so on.

150 100	901	12 82	23		55		77
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Group all the numbers from queue in the order in which they are inserted

new list=100, 150, 901, 82, 12, 23, 55, 77

Step 3: Insert all the numbers in the new list to queue.Based on the Two placed digit of every number

ie. in 0 we insert 100,901 (since their two digit place is 0) , in 1 we insert 12 (since their two digit is 1) and so on.

901 100	12	23			55 150		77	82
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Group all the numbers from queue in the order in which they are inserted

new list=100, 901,12,23,150,55,77,82

Step 4: Insert all the numbers in the new list to queue.Based on the 3 placed digit of every number

ie. in 0 we insert 82,77 etc (since their 3 digit place is 0) , in 1 we insert 100,150 (since their 3 digit is 1) and so on.

82 77 55 23 12	150 100								901
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Group all the numbers from queue in the order in which they are inserted

new list=12,23,55,77,82,100,150,901