Time-constrained sorting-a comparison of different algorithms

The designers of real-time systems try to avoid an under-utilization of hardware by assigning only the absolutely necessary time budget to each task. In certain cases it is also acceptable to cut the time quantum assigned to a task below its worst-case needs, provided (a) a high percentage of executions complete within this quantum and (b) the quality of the aborted computations is sufficient for further processing. In this paper we study the effect of reserving less than the worst-case execution time for different sorting algorithms. We define five metrics and use these metrics to investigate into the quality of the partial results of the sorting algorithms at the point of their termination. Further, we evaluate the sensitiveness of the results to changes in the completion rate. We present a rating of the evaluated algorithms and show how to achieve the best tradeoff between the CPU-time allocation and completion rate.