Virag Dhulia wrote:
> What could be the most efficient algo for finding the Nth highst element in
> an M-Element list where N<M always??

Are the elements in an array already, or are you reading them in?

If they're already in an array, you can do it in O(M) time using
a linear-time selection algorithm. Randomized quickselect
runs in O(M) expected time.

If you're reading them in, you don't even need to store all M
elements.  It's straightforward to do it in O(M log N) time and
O(N) space using a heap. It's also possible to do it in O(M)
time and O(N) space using a linear-time selection algorithm.


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