| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this thesis was to develop a graphical tooi for the visuaiization of a number of soning methods. The tool developed, called SortDisplay, not only gives the users the option to view various sorting methods in execution, but also gives other options to get infonnation about the perfonnance and complexity of the sorting algorithms in tenns of the number cf comparisons and exchanges needed. The tool also has various other options which help the user understand and analyze the sorting algorithms implemented. The tool was designed to be an educational tool running on the Oklahoma State University Computer Science Department's Sequent Symmetry S/81 computer running the Dynixlptx operating system. The tollowing topics, which were covered as background and context, put the thesis work in perspective: (1) sorting and sorting algorithms; (2) the concept of visualization and types of visualization; (3) the X window system, the X protocoi, and various software layers in X; (4) the OSFlMotiftoolkit; and (5) using Motif with C++. The programming part of the tool involved designing and implementing the class hierarchies, application framework, sorting methods, and user-interface. The program, coded in the C++ programming language using the Motif toolkit, Xt Intrinsics, and Xlib, has over 4500 lines ofuncommented code (over 5500 lines of documented code), 2 major class hierarchies, and 40 classes. The six sorting methods that were implemented include two Insertion sorts (Linear Insertion and Shellsort), three Exchange sorts (Bubblesort, Combsort, and Quicksort), and one Exchange sort (Straight Selection). SortDisplay was evaluated by various users of the Computer Science Department's Sequent Symmetry S/81 machine including faculty and staff members, and former and current graduate students. Most of the recommendations and suggestions of the evaluators were incorporated into the tool. A number of the ideas that were deemed beyond the scope of the present work were left for the future updates of the tool. | |
