Quick sort implementation in python

[Alex Snast]

On Sep 25, 11:47 pm, "Martin v. Löwis" <mar... at v.loewis.de> wrote:
> > Now as you can see I'm passing my list object to both functions along
> > with their first, last indices
>
> I cannot really see that. More specifically, it isn't definite what the
> type of the "a" argument is, nor does the specific type of "a" matter
> for the algorithm. It could be a list, or it could be a different
> mutable collection that is integer-indexed.
>
> > My question is: Is that the normal way to implement algorithms in
> > python
>
> Yes, it is.
>
> > cause in c++ i've implemented that algo via a template function
> > which can have a randon access data structure or not. However i have
> > no idea how to access the values of a data structure that doesn't
> > allow random access.
>
> Can you please explain how you did that in C? IOW, how did you do
> the partition function (template) in case you don't have random
> access to the collection?
>
> Regards,
> Martin

Why exactly do you need random access for partition function? Do can
swap 2 nodes of a linked list without random access (you can swap the
pointers or just swap the node values) and you traverse the list till
you reach it's tail.