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Internally speaking, which algorithm(s) does PHP use to implement the various sort functions it offers? It seems like the usort variants might use a different algorithm than the built in sorts, but I wanted to know.

Where would I even find this information?

Thanks!

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You could find the information by looking at the php manual. http://php.net/sort says PHP uses an implementation of Quicksort. Failing that, you could always trudge through the PHP source code itself.

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For sorting, PHP uses an implementation of quicksort that can be found in Zend/zend_sort.c, which takes a comparison function and an array of elements. The default comparison function for sort() is defined in ext/standard/array.c and is called php_array_data_compare(). So basically, it's the same algorithm for all sorting functions, except that they take different comparison functions.

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IIRC, PHP uses quick sort

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Since Timothy "ninja'ed" you in the FGITW game, and because this 5-word answer isn't found to be helpful by any researchers in over a decade, you might entertain the idea of dropping this post from the page. Your call.

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