Sorting algorithms

[Scorpion-ice]

Which sorting algorithms would you say are the fastest when dealing with large amounts of data, I know Quicksort is fast (hense the name) but I know there are algorithms much faster, and if possible could anyone display some code(?) for it (preferrably in C/C++). It doesn't matter which language it is written in as I only want to see roughly on how it works. I have never really had to sort large amounts of data before so a bubble sort has always been alright to use.

[Supernova9]

http://www.nada.kth.se/~snilsson/public/papers/sorting/

[queball]

yay a CS-y question

quicksort is considered the best general purpose sort. That doesn't mean anything for any particular case but you haven't given much information about your data. Would it be possible to keep it sorted in memory? Do you have any idea about the distribution of what you're sorting on? Whenever I've beaten a standard quicksort it's by using a quicksort variant or a sort very specific to the data (eg, a radix sort on evenly distributed numbers).

How large is large, what's the data, and what's the application? I need details!

[Cyp]

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sort_algorithm lists a lot of sorting algorithms, and lists the complexity.

I don't recommend the bogosort, though.