A radix sort has runtime complexity of nd where n is the num

A radix sort has runtime complexity of (nd) where n is the number of

values and d is the number of digits in each key. This is typically much better

than the (n lg n) performance of either Quicksort or Heapsort. Is there some

drawback to radix sorting that prevents it from widespread use?

Solution

Answer:

Disadvantages of Radix sort:

(1) Needs more memory than Quicksort and HeapSort
   Radix sort takes memory to store sorting results.This increases the memory requirements.For smaller value of n it is perfect but as size increases memory requirements also increases.And then there is problem.

(2) It is less flexible
   Since it is not comparable based i.e it does not compare numbers directly.
   It just sorts things by their binary representation.It never compare items against each other.
Where as Quicksort and Heapsort works with all kind of data.