Only the median (or pair around the median) needs to be sorted, the other numbers can be unsorted :)
To wit, given the unordered set:
[ 5, 1, 3 ]
How would "Only the median (or pair around the median) needs to be sorted" be satisfied? As with quicksort, quickselect is generally implemented as
an in-place algorithm, and beyond selecting the kth
element, it also partially sorts the data.
When the above is applicable, those quickselect implementations would violate the original assertion of: Only the median (or pair around the median) needs to be
sorted, the other numbers can be unsorted
When the collection involved is immutable.