Why java.util.Arrays uses Two Sorting Algorithms

Saturday, March 30th, 2013

java.util.Arrays uses quicksort (actually dual pivot quicksort in the most recent version) for primitive types such as int and mergesort for objects that implement Comparable or use a Comparator. Why the difference? Why not pick one and use it for all cases? Robert Sedgewick suggests that “the designer’s assessment of the idea that if a programmer’s using objects maybe space is not a critically important consideration and so the extra space used by mergesort maybe’s not a problem and if the programmer’s using primitive types maybe performance is the most important thing so we use the quicksort”, but I think there’s a much more obvious reason.
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