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Asked: 2026-06-05T04:41:02+00:00

In Python 2.7, how does Python’s built-in sorted function work – what algorithm does

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In Python 2.7, how does Python’s built-in sorted function work – what algorithm does it use?

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  1. Editorial Team

    Older versions of Python (2.3 – 3.10) used an algorithm called Timsort:

    Timsort is a hybrid sorting algorithm, derived from merge sort and
    insertion sort, designed to perform well on many kinds of real-world
    data.     It was invented by Tim Peters in 2002 for use in the Python
    programming language. The algorithm finds subsets of the data that are
    already ordered, and uses the subsets to sort the data more
    efficiently. This is done by merging an identified subset, called a
    run, with existing runs until certain criteria are fulfilled. Timsort was Python’s standard sorting algorithm from version 2.3 to version 3.10. It is
    now also used to sort arrays in Java SE 7, and on the Android
    platform.

    Since 3.11, Python uses Powersort, which was designed by Ian Munro and Sebastian Wild. It is an improved nearly-optimal mergesort that adapts to existing runs of sorted data.

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