Thread: Sorting by Bits Confusion

Hi everyone,

I understand how radix sort works with integer numbers but I am having trouble imagining how 8-bit radix sort works. This is essentially the same idea as integer radix sort but I don't understand what I am supposed to do once I AND 8 bits off of a number.

Some of the searches I've looked at say you need an offset table size 256, I can see this is for all possible bit sequences for 8 bits though I don't get how to actually use this. Does this serve for the count array? or is this a table that 'translates' the bits to an actual number that you is used to update count array?

Also the numbers I am working with are positive only so there's no worry about negative numbers being at the end.

Originally Posted by workisnotfun

I understand how radix sort works with integer numbers but I am having trouble imagining how 8-bit radix sort works.

I don't understand what you mean by that.

Do you mean you understand how radix sort works with decimal numbers (when using 10 as the radix), say on paper, but not how it works for binary numbers?