csort

csort is as constant-time sorting network. By using SIMD instructions, it achieves 2-5x faster times than Nim's std/sort for reasonable sized arrays.

By being in constant-time, no matter what the data is, it makes it immune to timing side-channels. This matters if you need to sort sensitive data in cryptographic contexts.

nimble install csort

import csort 

var a = @[3, 2, 5, 1, 4]
a.sort()
echo a

> @[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The following benchmarks compare csort with Nim's standard library sort.

For sequences bigger than a million, the network scaling O(n log^2 n) catches up.

Based on Ken Batcher's 1968 paper and Daniel J. Bernstein's work.