Homework 8: Animated Sorting Algorithms

Starter Files

For this assignment, create a package named sorters and place these files in that package:

Sorter.java
- BubbleSorter.java
- InsertionSorter.java
SorterThread.java
AnimatedSortPanel.java
AnimatedSorting.java
Update.java
AnimationThread.java

Implementing the Sorting Algorithms

The Bubble Sort and Insertion Sort algorithms have been provided for you, to demonstrate how to use the Sorter class in this project. Implement the following classes, each of which extends Sorter:

MergeSorter.java
HeapSorter.java
QuickSorter.java

Note that each of BubbleSorter.java and InsertionSorter.java contain one-line main() methods for testing without the use of the GUI. Be sure to test your other four implementations in a similar manner.

Implementing the Animation Thread

There will be three total threads running within AnimatedSorting:

The main GUI thread.
A thread in which sorting occurs.
A thread that takes the incremental results from sorting and animates them.

It is your task to implement the last of these three in the AnimationThread class. The strategy is as follows:

Sorting algorithms (via the Sorter class) will send Update objects via the sendUpdate() method.
The AnimationThread object will maintain a queue of Update objects.
- Each call to sendUpdate() should add to the queue.
- The queue should be one of the classes from java.util.concurrent that implements the BlockingQueue interface.
The run() method will remove Update objects from the queue and call the update() method of the AnimatedSortPanel class to change the state of the graph of the array element locations. It will ensure that queue removals do not happen any more frequently than the interval specified in the constructor call.