Counting sort initialization of the output array, each take time. Therefore, the time for the whole algorithm is the sum of the times for these steps, . Because it uses arrays of length and , the total space usage of the algorithm is also . For problem instances in which the maximum key value is significantly smaller than the number of items, counting sort can be highly space-efficient, as the only storage it uses other than its input and output arrays is the Count array which uses space . If each item to be sorted is itself an integer, and used as
Counting sort Counting sort In computer science, counting sort is an algorithm for sorting a collection of objects according to keys that are small integers; that is, it is an integer sorting algorithm. It operates by counting the number of objects that have each distinct key value, and using arithmetic on those counts to determine the positions of each key value in the output sequence. Its running time is linear in the number of items and the difference between the maximum and minimum key values, so it is only suitable for direct use in situations where the variation in keys is not