METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SORTING CYCLIC DATA IN LEXICOGRAPHIC ORDER

摘要

Methods and apparatus for lexicographically sorting cyclic data are disclosed.In one illustrative example, a method of lexicographically sorting data, whichsorts after the nth sorting iteration 2(n-1) leading characters in the cyclicdata includes the acts of receiving a set of N cyclic shifts of N charactersidentifiable by an array of indexes {0, 1, 2, ..., N-1}; sorting the set ofcyclic shifts based on a comparison of a first character of each cyclic shift;and for an nth sorting iteration of the set of cyclic shifts, where n = 1, 2,3, ..., up to 2n N: sorting at least a subset of the cyclic shifts which areidentifiable by a subset array of indexes in the array in accordance with aprevious sort of cyclic shifts associated with the subset array of indexesplus 2(n-1)*modulo(N); and repeating the sorting for a next nth sortingiteration as necessary until the set of cyclic shifts are lexicographicallysorted.