What's faster: inserting into a priority queue, or sorting retrospectively?

Question

What\'s faster: inserting into a priority queue, or sorting retrospectively?

I am generating some items that I need to be sorted at the end. I was wondering, what is

Answer 1

As far as I understand, your problem does not require Priority Queue, since your tasks sounds like "Make many insertions, after that sort everything". That's like shooting birds from a laser, not an appropriate tool. Use standard sorting techniques for that.

You would need a Priority Queue, if your task was to imitate a sequence of operations, where each operation can be either "Add an element to the set" or "Remove smallest/greatest element from the set". This can be used in problem of finding a shortest path on the graph, for example. Here you cannot just use standard sorting techniques.