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JavaScript: DHTML Insertion Sort

This page demonstrates the Insertion Sort algorithm.

id	colour	random
1	yellow	689
2	purple	578
3	purple	362
4	purple	319
5	yellow	547
6	red	136
7	red	390
8	yellow	422
9	green	910
10	purple	640
11	green	13
12	purple	166
13	green	684
14	purple	345
15	purple	817
16	blue	58
17	blue	829
18	orange	189
19	red	948
20	purple	161

[add rows to TABLE]

How does it work?

For a more detailed discussion on the sorting process, you can refer to the Bubble Sort page. The only difference between the two is the actual sorting algorithm, with the Insertion Sort, in theory, being a little bit faster:

  // global variables
  var parent = null;            // 'parent' node
  var items = new Array();      // array of 'child' nodes
  var col = 0;                  // column for sorting

  function sortTable(tableid, n, desc)
  {
    parent = document.getElementById(tableid);
    col = n;

    if(parent.nodeName != "TBODY")
      parent = parent.getElementsByTagName("TBODY")[0];
    if(parent.nodeName != "TBODY")
      return false;

    // assert: parent is now a TBODY node
    items = parent.getElementsByTagName("TR");
    var N = items.length;

    // insertion sort
    for(var j=1; j < N; j++) {
      for(var i=j; i > 0 && compare(get(i), get(i-1), desc); i--) {
        exchange(i, i-1);
      }
    }
  }

For more advanced (and complicated) sorting techniques, see the Shell Sort and Quick Sort demonstrations.

JavaScript: DHTML Insertion Sort

How does it work?

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