Spreadsort

Spreadsort is a sorting algorithm invented by Steven Ross in 2002 that combines concepts from distribution-based sorts such as radix sort and bucket sort with the partitioning concepts of comparison sorts such as quicksort and mergesort. Where quicksort identifies a pivot and partitions a list into two sublists, spreadsort generalizes the idea by partitioning the list into many more divisions at each step, first locating the minimum and maximum values in the list and then dividing the range between them into equal-sized bins that are each sorted recursively; experimental results have shown it to be highly efficient, often outperforming traditional algorithms such as quicksort, particularly on data with structure and on string sorting.