Fast algorithm implementation to sort very small list

Question

This is the problem I ran into long time ago. I thought I may ask your for your ideas. assume I have very small list of numbers (integers), 4 or 8 elements, that need to be

Answer 1

For such a small data set, you want as simple of algorithm as possible. More likely than not, a basic Insertion Sort will do as well as you could want.

Would need to know more about the system this is running on, how many times you need to do this sort a second, etc... but the general rule in small sorts is to keep it simple. Quicksort and the like are not beneficial.