Average-Case Complexity of Shellsort

Abstract

We prove a general lower bound on the average-case complexity of Shellsort: the average number of data-movements (and comparisons) made by a $p$-pass Shellsort for any incremental sequence is $Ω(pn^{1 + 1/p)$ for all $p\le \log n$. Using similar arguments, we analyze the average-case complexity of several other sorting algorithms.

11 pages. Submitted to ICALP'99