Further information would be needed to discuss how the library sort efficiency compares to other sorting methods in reality.

The two graphs show the performance of library sort and insertion sort for the same inputs.

Although many consider it a solved problem, useful new sorting algorithms are still being invented (for example, library sort was first published in 2006).

Compared to basic insertion sort, the drawback of library sort is that it requires extra space for the gaps.

Some care must be taken to ensure that the sort does not exhibit bad worst-case behavior: Standard library sort functions are unlikely to be appropriate.

Library sort, or gapped insertion sort is a sorting algorithm that uses an insertion sort, but with gaps in the array to accelerate subsequent insertions.

Library sort may improve that somewhat in the insertion step, as fewer elements need to move to make room, but is also adding an extra cost in the rebalancing step.

It is quite clear that library sort takes O(n log n) time approximately while the insertion sort takes O(n) time.

"The best they can do is take a library sort of room and convert it to a gym," said Paul Purcell, a partner in Braddock & Purcell, a real estate consulting firm.

In 2004 Bender, Farach-Colton, and Mosteiro published a new variant of insertion sort called library sort or gapped insertion sort that leaves a small number of unused spaces (i.e., "gaps") spread throughout the array.