Tag Archives: one sorting algorithm

Friday Algorithms: Quicksort – Difference Between PHP and JavaScript

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Here’s some Friday fun. Let me show you one sorting algorithm, perhaps the most known of all them – the quick sort, implemented both on PHP and JavaScript. Although the code look similar between both languages, there are few differences, that show the importance of the syntax knowledge!

1. PHP

<?php
 
    $unsorted = array(2,4,5,63,4,5,63,2,4,43);
 
    function quicksort($array)
    {
        if (count($array) == 0)
            return array();
 
        $pivot = $array[0];
        $left = $right = array();
 
        for ($i = 1; $i < count($array); $i++) {
            if ($array[$i] < $pivot)
                $left[] = $array[$i];
            else
                $right[] = $array[$i];
        }
 
        return array_merge(quicksort($left), array($pivot), quicksort($right));
    }
 
    $sorted = quicksort($unsorted);
 
    print_r($sorted);

2. JavaScript

var a = [2,4,5,63,4,5,63,2,4,43];
 
function quicksort(arr)
{
    if (arr.length == 0)
        return [];
 
    var left = new Array();
    var right = new Array();
    var pivot = arr[0];
 
    for (var i = 1; i < arr.length; i++) {
        if (arr[i] < pivot) {
           left.push(arr[i]);
        } else {
           right.push(arr[i]);
        }
    }
 
    return quicksort(left).concat(pivot, quicksort(right));
}
 
console.log(quicksort(a));

Note that the first conditional statement is quite important! While in PHP the count function will return 0 either on a NULL value or an empty array and you can substitute it with something like count($array) < 2

if (count($array) < 2)
	return $array;

in JavaScript you cannot use that because of the presence of the ‘undefined’ value when an “empty” array is passed as an argument. Thus you’ve the conditional above:

// this will result with an error
if (arr.length < 2)
        return arr;

Coming Up Next …

An iterative version of the algorithm next Friday!