Parallel String Sample Sort

  • Conference:

    ESA 2013, 21st European Symposium on Algorithms

  • Location:

    Sophia Antipolis, France

  • Date:

    September 2013

  • Author(s):

    Timo Bingmann, Peter Sanders

  • Speaker:

    Timo Bingmann

Abstract

We discuss how string sorting algorithms can be parallelized on modern multi-core shared memory machines. As a synthesis of the best sequential string sorting algorithms and successful parallel sorting algorithms for atomic objects, we propose string sample sort. The algorithm makes effective use of the memory hierarchy, uses additional word level parallelism, and largely avoids branch mispredictions. We also parallelize variants of multikey quicksort and radix sort that are also useful in certain situations.