Bubble Sort visualized

The bubble sort algorithm is one of the simplest sorting methods to implement and in this post we will see that it is also one of the best to visualize. It works by repeatedly exchanging adjacent elements when necessary and stops when no exchanges are required. Thus, smaller elements will "bubble" to the front, (or bigger elements will be "bubbled" to the back). The following snippet is able to visualize the behavior of the bubble sort:

import pylab
from random import shuffle

def bubblesort_anim(a):
 x = range(len(a))
 imgidx = 0
 # bubble sort algorithm
 swapped = True
 while swapped: # until there's no swapping
  swapped = False
  for i in range(len(a)-1):
   if a[i] > a[i+1]:
    a[i+1], a[i] = a[i], a[i+1] # swap
    swapped = True
  pylab.plot(x,a,'k.',markersize=6)
  pylab.savefig("bubblesort/img" + '%04d' % imgidx + ".png")
  pylab.clf() # figure clear
  imgidx = imgidx + 1

# running the algorithm
a = range(300)
shuffle(a)
bubblesort_anim(a)

The snipped is based same technique we have seen to visualize the insertion sort algorithm and to build the animation. At each iteration an image that represents the status of the array is saved to the disk and ffmpeg is used to build a video as showed in the last post. This time the result should be as follows:

The animation is easy on the eyes and we can observe that during the sorting process the smallest elements approach to their correct positions as the bubbles go up in a glass of soda.

Stay tuned to see the animation of the insertion sort algorithm!