Is there a C# equivalent to C++ std::partial_sort?

Question

I'm trying to implement a paging algorithm for a dataset sortable via many criteria. Unfortunately, while some of those criteria can be implemented at the database level, some must be done at the app level (we have to integrate with another data source). We have a paging (actually infinite scroll) requirement and are looking for a way to minimize the pain of sorting the entire dataset at the app level with every paging call.

What is the best way to do a partial sort, only sorting the part of the list that absolutely needs to be sorted? Is there an equivalent to C++'s std::partial_sort function available in the .NET libraries? How should I go about solving this problem?

EDIT: Here's an example of what I'm going for:

Let's say I need to get elements 21-40 of a 1000 element set, according to some sorting criteria. In order to speed up the sort, and since I have to go through the whole dataset every time anyway (this is a web service over HTTP, which is stateless), I don't need the whole dataset ordered. I only need elements 21-40 to be correctly ordered. It is sufficient to create 3 partitions: Elements 1-20, unsorted (but all less than element 21); elements 21-40, sorted; and elements 41-1000, unsorted (but all greater than element 40).

Answer 1

OK. Here's what I would try based on what you said in reply to my comment.

I want to be able to say "4th through 6th" and get something like: 3, 2, 1 (unsorted, but all less than proper 4th element); 4, 5, 6 (sorted and in the same place they would be for a sorted list); 8, 7, 9 (unsorted, but all greater than proper 6th element).

Lets add 10 to our list to make it easier: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

So, what you could do is use the quick select algorithm to find the the i^th and k^th elements. In your case above i is 4 and k is 6. That will of course return the values 4 and 6. That's going to take two passes through your list. So, so far the runtime is O(2n) = O(n). The next part is easy, of course. We have lower and upper bounds on the data we care about. All we need to do is make another pass through our list looking for any element that is between our upper and lower bounds. If we find such an element we throw it into a new List. Finally, we then sort our List which contains only the i^th through k^th elements that we care about.

So, I believe the total runtime ends up being O(N) + O((k-i)lg(k-i))

static void Main(string[] args) {
    //create an array of 10 million items that are randomly ordered
    var list = Enumerable.Range(1, 10000000).OrderBy(x => Guid.NewGuid()).ToList();

    var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    var slowOrder = list.OrderBy(x => x).Skip(10).Take(10).ToList();
    sw.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
    //Took ~8 seconds on my machine

    sw.Restart();
    var smallVal = Quickselect(list, 11);
    var largeVal = Quickselect(list, 20);
    var elements = list.Where(el => el >= smallVal && el <= largeVal).OrderBy(el => el);
    Console.WriteLine(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
    //Took ~1 second on my machine
}

public static T Quickselect<T>(IList<T> list , int k) where T : IComparable {
    Random rand = new Random();
    int r = rand.Next(0, list.Count);
    T pivot = list[r];
    List<T> smaller = new List<T>();
    List<T> larger = new List<T>();
    foreach (T element in list) {
        var comparison = element.CompareTo(pivot);
        if (comparison == -1) {
            smaller.Add(element);
        }
        else if (comparison == 1) {
            larger.Add(element);
        }
    }

    if (k <= smaller.Count) {
        return Quickselect(smaller, k);
    }
    else if (k > list.Count - larger.Count) {
        return Quickselect(larger, k - (list.Count - larger.Count));
    }
    else {
        return pivot;
    }
}

Answer 2

You can use List<T>.Sort(int, int, IComparer<T>):

inputList.Sort(startIndex, count, Comparer<T>.Default);

Answer 3

Array.Sort() has an overload that accepts index and length arguments that lets you sort a subset of an array. The same exists for List.

You cannot sort an IEnumerable directly, of course.