# -*- org -*-
#+CATEGORY: sort

* Routines for selecting the k largest or smallest values could use
heapsort for speed O(N log k) rather than insertion O(N k).

* Sorting of complex arrarys without using additional memory. We try
to avoid allocating memory internally in GSL, so internally computing
the magnitudes and storing them in a temporary array is undesirable. 

Obviously a complex array can be sorted using sqrt(x*x + y*y) <=>
sqrt(u*u + v*v) (written in a numerically stable way) for every
comparison, but this may be unacceptably slow. Maybe not? It is just a
constant factor. The square roots could sometimes be avoided by
optimization,

    (x,y) = (MAX(|x|,|y|), MIN(|x|,|y|))
    (u,v) = (MAX(|u|,|v|), MIN(|u|,|v|))

    if (x < u/sqrt(2))     /* This part is optional optimization */
       return -1 
    if (x > u*sqrt(2))
       return +1

    if (x == 0 && u == 0) ...
    if (x == 0) ...
    if (u == 0) ...    

    t = u*sqrt((1+(v/u)^2)/(1+(y/x)^2))
    
    if (x < t)
       return -1
    if (x > t)
       return +1 
    else
       return 0

but this does depend on the data having sufficient range for the
optimization to be worthwhile, otherwise it is an extra cost.