std::partial_sort

Defined in header `<algorithm>`
	(1)
template< class RandomIt > void partial_sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last );			(until C++20)
template< class RandomIt > constexpr void partial_sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last );			(since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class RandomIt > void partial_sort( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last );		(2)	(since C++17)
		(3)
template< class RandomIt, class Compare > void partial_sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last, Compare comp );				(until C++20)
template< class RandomIt, class Compare > constexpr void partial_sort( RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last, Compare comp );				(since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class RandomIt, class Compare > void partial_sort( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, RandomIt first, RandomIt middle, RandomIt last, Compare comp );			(4)	(since C++17)

Rearranges elements such that the range [first, middle) contains the sorted middle - first smallest elements in the range [first, last).

The order of equal elements is not guaranteed to be preserved. The order of the remaining elements in the range [middle, last) is unspecified.

1) Elements are compared using operator<.

3) Elements are compared using the given binary comparison function comp.

2,4) Same as (1,3), but executed according to policy. These overloads do not participate in overload resolution unless std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to sort
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
comp	-	comparison function object (i.e. an object that satisfies the requirements of Compare) which returns true if the first argument is less than (i.e. is ordered before) the second. The signature of the comparison function should be equivalent to the following: bool cmp(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); While the signature does not need to have const &, the function must not modify the objects passed to it and must be able to accept all values of type (possibly const) `Type1` and `Type2` regardless of value category (thus, Type1 & is not allowed, nor is Type1 unless for `Type1` a move is equivalent to a copy (since C++11)). The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type RandomIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both of them.
Type requirements
- `RandomIt` must meet the requirements of ValueSwappable and LegacyRandomAccessIterator.
- The type of dereferenced `RandomIt` must meet the requirements of MoveAssignable and MoveConstructible.

Return value

(none)

Complexity

Approximately $(last-first)log(middle-first)$ applications of cmp

Exceptions

The overloads with a template parameter named ExecutionPolicy report errors as follows:

If execution of a function invoked as part of the algorithm throws an exception and ExecutionPolicy is one of the standard policies, std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy, the behavior is implementation-defined.
If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
#include <array>
#include <iostream>
 
int main()
{
    std::array<int, 10> s{5, 7, 4, 2, 8, 6, 1, 9, 0, 3};
 
    std::partial_sort(s.begin(), s.begin() + 3, s.end());
    for (int a : s) {
        std::cout << a << " ";
    } 
}

Possible output:

0 1 2 7 8 6 5 9 4 3

Language
Standard Library Headers
Freestanding and hosted implementations
Named requirements
Language support library
Concepts library (C++20)
Diagnostics library
Utilities library
Strings library
Containers library
Iterators library
Ranges library (C++20)
Algorithms library
Numerics library
Input/output library
Localizations library
Regular expressions library (C++11)
Atomic operations library (C++11)
Thread support library (C++11)
Filesystem library (C++17)
Technical Specifications