🚀 Sorting Algorithm Series – Part 1: Bubble Sort

Deep research on Bubble Sort

Bubble Sort is a simple sorting algorithm that repeatedly steps through a list, compares adjacent elements, and swaps them if they are in the wrong order. This process is repeated until the list is fully sorted.

When to Use Bubble Sort

• Best suited for small datasets or nearly sorted arrays due to its simplicity.

• Not efficient for large datasets because of its O(n²) time complexity.

Time Complexity

• Best case: O(n) – when the array is already sorted

• Average case: O(n²)

• Worst case: O(n²)

Example

Pass 1

Pass 2

Pass 3

Pass 4

Pass 5

Algorithm

void bubbleSort(array) {
    int n = length of array
    repeat i from 0 to n-1 {
        boolean swapped = false
        repeat j from 0 to n-i-1 {
            if array[j] is greater than array[j+1] {
                swap(array[j], array[j+1])
                swapped = true
            }
        }
        if not swapped:
            break
    }
    return array
}

Optimizations

• If no swaps occur during a pass, the array is already sorted, so the algorithm can terminate early.

• In the inner loop, use n - i - 1 instead of n - 1 to avoid rechecking elements that are already sorted.

✅ Summary:
Bubble Sort is simple and intuitive, great for learning basic sorting concepts, but not suitable for large datasets due to its quadratic time complexity