Analysis of shellsort and related algorithms

Abstract

This is an abstract of a survey talk on the theoretical and empirical studies that have been done over the past four decades on the Shellsort algorithm and its variants. The discussion includes: upper bounds, including linkages to number-theoretic properties of the algorithm; lower bounds on Shellsort and Shellsort-based networks; average-case results; proposed probabilistic sorting networks based on the algorithm; and a list of open problems.