The meat of my solution (use strict, support subs, etc. not shown for brevity) is:
sub sort_stack {

  # How deep is the stack?
  my $depth = pop @stack;
  my $original_depth = $depth;

  # stacks with 0 or 1 elements already sorted
  while ($depth > 1) {

    # peek at top of stack, and assume it's the biggest item on there 
+until we determine otherwise
    my $top = pop @stack;
    push @stack, $top;
    my $biggest = $top;
    my $position = 0;

    # rotate through other stack elements to see if there are any bigg
+er ones
    for my $rotations (1..$depth) {
      rotate_up($depth);
      $top = pop @stack;
      push @stack, $top;
      if ($top gt $biggest) {
        $biggest = $top;
        $position = $rotations;
      }
    }

    # rotate the biggest element into the bottom position
    for my $rotations (1..$position+1) {
      rotate_up($depth);
    }

    # now that the biggest element is at the bottom, reduce the depth 
+and sort the rest
    $depth--;
  }

  # put original stack depth back on top
  push @stack, $original_depth;
}

[download]

Ugh, I took this challenge to heart and wrote this code without looking at any previous posts, but I now see it bears a striking similarity to the solution RMGir posted before me. Oh, well.

The thing that annoys me about this is that it looks like it's O(n^2). Is it possible to implement an O(nlogn) sort given the problem constraints? Hmmm, something to think about...

In reply to Re: Algorithm Pop Quiz: Sorting by seattlejohn
in thread Algorithm Pop Quiz: Sorting by clintp

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