Question

Sort a list containing names of students in ascending order using selection sort.

Answer 1

The program finds the alphabetically smallest name from the unsorted portion and swaps it into the correct position.

def selection_sort_names(names):
    for i in range(len(names) - 1):
        minimum_index = i

        # Find alphabetically smallest name
        for j in range(i + 1, len(names)):
            if names[j].lower() < names[minimum_index].lower():
                minimum_index = j

        # Place the smallest name at index i
        names[i], names[minimum_index] = names[minimum_index], names[i]

    return names


students = input("Enter student names separated by commas: ").split(",")
students = [name.strip() for name in students]
print("Sorted names:", selection_sort_names(students))

Enter student names separated by commas: Neena, Meeta, Geeta, Reeta
Sorted names: ['Geeta', 'Meeta', 'Neena', 'Reeta']