Cocktail Sort in Python

Algorithms: Sorting November 15, 2026 python

Cocktail sort is a comparison-sort variant useful for understanding alternative ways to move misplaced values..

python
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
from bisect import bisect_left

# Cocktail Sort in Python
#
# PURPOSE
# Cocktail sort is a comparison-sort variant useful for understanding alternative ways to
# move misplaced values.
#
# METHOD
# Alternate forward and backward adjacent-swap passes, shrinking both ends and stopping when
# no swaps occur.
#
# COMPLEXITY
# O(n squared) worst-case time and O(1) auxiliary space. Stable.
#
# CONTRACT
# Sorts ascending in place and returns 0. Intended for small collections; use a general-
# purpose O(n log n) sort for large workloads.
# Public APIs infer array lengths except in C, which accepts pointer/length pairs. Vertex
# counts and matrix dimensions remain explicit. Arrays must contain signed 32-bit integers.
# Sorted order, correct tree topology, and caller-owned data-structure invariants are
# preconditions; checking them on every query would change query complexity.
# Scalar and shape checks are included. Value-range checks are included where needed to
# prevent invalid indexing or nontermination. Allocation sizes are capped at 4,000,000
# workspace entries. Arithmetic outside Python raises an error on 32-bit overflow; Python
# uses arbitrary precision. Native allocation failures propagate. In-place outputs may be
# partly updated after arithmetic failure. These are single-threaded, in-memory
# implementations.
#
# LANGUAGE DETAILS
# Python 3.9+: automatic lengths, native lists, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, and
# bisect_left for LIS. Invalid scalar/shape inputs raise ValueError. Integer element types
# and sorted/tree invariants remain caller preconditions.
#
# EXAMPLE
# Expected return: 0.
# Expected a after call: [1, 1, 3, 4].
# Run: python example.py
# Tests for this exact source artifact run before publication. The accompanying source
# archive includes unit cases, runtime results, and source hashes.

def alg_require(condition):
    if not condition:
        raise ValueError("invalid algorithm input; see contract")
def alg_size(n):
    alg_require(0 <= n <= 4000000)
    return n

def cocktail_sort(a: list[int]) -> int:
    alg_require(isinstance(a, list) and len(a) <= 1000000)
    n: int = len(a)
    alg_require(n >= 0 and n <= 1000000)
    alg_require(len(a) == n)
    low: int = 0
    high: int = n - 1
    i: int = 0
    changed: int = 1
    temp: int = 0
    while low < high and changed != 0:
        changed = 0
        i = low
        while i < high:
            if a[i] > a[i + 1]:
                temp = a[i]
                a[i] = a[i + 1]
                a[i + 1] = temp
                changed = 1
            i += 1
        high -= 1
        i = high
        while i > low:
            if a[i - 1] > a[i]:
                temp = a[i]
                a[i] = a[i - 1]
                a[i - 1] = temp
                changed = 1
            i -= 1
        low += 1
    return 0

a = [4, 1, 3, 1]
result = cocktail_sort(a)
print(result)
# Expected a: [1, 1, 3, 4]
print(a)