Note how you can find the median asymptotically faster than do a half-sort. Indeed, the c++ stdlib has functions both for half-sort and for median.

If you want to find the median fast, see Re: Puzzle: The Ham Cheese Sandwich cut. and other nodes in its thread (that thread has an easy to remember title). If you want to do a half-sort with a heap, see Binary heap, but it actually also works to just find the median, partition the elements to ones greater and lessequal to it, and then sort one of the halves.

In reply to Re: A heap of medians: efficiency vs. speed by ambrus
in thread A heap of medians: efficiency vs. speed by kyle

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