Implementing the Counting Sort Algorithm in Python

Counting sort is an efficient non-comparison sorting algorithm suitable for integers with a small value range. Its time complexity is O(n + k), where n is the number of elements and k is the data range. Core steps: 1. Determine the data range (find min and max); 2. Construct a counting array to count the occurrences of each element; 3. Output the elements of the counting array in order (outputting the number of times corresponding to the count). It is stable (relative order of duplicate elements remains unchanged), and memory usage depends on the data range. It is suitable for integer data with many duplicates or a small range (e.g., exam scores). The Python implementation completes sorting through boundary handling, counting occurrences, etc. Test cases verify its applicability to arrays with duplicate elements and negative numbers.