Analysis of Bubble Sort and

Loop Invariant

N-1

N-1 Iteration
1
42

2
35

3
12

4
77

5
5

6
101

1
35

2
12

3
42

4
5

5
77

6
101

1
12

3
5
3
35

4
42

5
77

6
101

1
12

2
35
2
5

4
42

5
77

6
101

1
5

2
12

3
35

4
42

5
77

6
101

procedure Bubblesort(A isoftype in/out Arr_Type)

to_do, index isoftype Num
to_do <- N 1

Outer loop

loop
exitif(to_do = 0)
To bubble a value
index <- 1
loop
exitif(index > to_do)
if(A[index] > A[index + 1]) then
Swap(A[index], A[index + 1])
endif
index <- index + 1
endloop
to_do <- to_do - 1
endloop
endprocedure // Bubblesort

Inner loop

To do N-1 iterations

Bubble Sort Time Complexity

Best-Case Time Complexity
The scenario under which the algorithm will do
the least amount of work (finish the fastest)

Worst-Case Time Complexity

The scenario under which the algorithm will do
the largest amount of work (finish the slowest)

Bubble Sort Time Complexity

Called Linear Time
O(N)
Order-of-N

Best-Case Time Complexity

Array is already sorted
Need 1 iteration with (N-1) comparisons

Called Quadratic Time

O(N2)
Order-of-N-square

Worst-Case Time Complexity

Need N-1 iterations
(N-1) + (N-2) + (N-3) + . + (1) = (N-1)* N / 2

Loop Invariant
It is a condition or property that is guaranteed to be correct with
each iteration in the loop
Usually used to prove the correctness of the algorithm

Loop Invariant for Bubble Sort

By the end of iteration i the right-most i items

(largest) are sorted and in place

N-1

N-1 Iterations
1
42

2
35

3
12

4
77

5
5

6
101

1st

1
35

2
12

3
42

4
5

5
77

6
101

2nd

1
12

3
5
3
35

4
42

5
77

6
101

3rd

1
12

2
35
2
5

4
42

5
77

6
101

4th

1
5

2
12

3
35

4
42

5
77

6
101

5th

Correctness of Bubble Sort (using

Loop Invariant)
Bubble sort has N-1 Iterations
Invariant: By the end of iteration i the right-most i
items (largest) are sorted and in place
Then: After the N-1 iterations The right-most N-1
items are sorted
This implies that all the N items are sorted

Correctness of Bubble Sort (using

Loop Invariant)
What if we stop early (after iteration K)
Remember the Boolean did_swap flag
From the invariant the right-most K items are sorted

A[N-(K-1)] < A[N-2] < A[N-1] < A[N]

Since we stopped early, then no swaps are done, Then

A[1] < A[2] < .. < A[N-K]

By merging these two, then the entire array is sorted