readme.md

Push_swap

A project designed to teach sorting algorithms and their complexity by implementing a stack-based sorting program in C.

Overview

The Push_swap project challenges you to sort data on a stack using a limited set of instructions with the fewest possible operations. The goal is to write a C program that efficiently sorts a list of integers and outputs the sequence of sorting instructions.

Features

• Implements various stack-based sorting algorithms.
• Handles random positive and negative integers with no duplicates.
• Utilizes a minimal number of operations.
• Provides a checker program to verify the sorting sequence.

Instructions

Stack Operations

The following operations are available for manipulating two stacks, a and b:

• sa: Swap the first two elements of stack a.
• sb: Swap the first two elements of stack b.
• ss: Swap the first two elements of both stacks simultaneously.
• pa: Push the top element of stack b to stack a.
• pb: Push the top element of stack a to stack b.
• ra: Rotate stack a (shift all elements up by one).
• rb: Rotate stack b.
• rr: Rotate both stacks simultaneously.
• rra: Reverse rotate stack a (shift all elements down by one).
• rrb: Reverse rotate stack b.
• rrr: Reverse rotate both stacks simultaneously.

Example

Consider sorting the integers 2 1 3 6 5 8. An example sequence of operations might be:

ra
pb
ra
ra
pb
rra
pa
rra
rra
pa

Usage

1. Compile the program using the provided Makefile:

   make

    Run the push_swap program with a list of integers:

./push_swap 2 1 3 6 5 8

Verify the sorting result with the checker program (Bonus):

ARG="2 1 3 6 5 8"; ./push_swap $ARG | ./checker $ARG