Multi-key quicksort, also known as three-way radix quicksort,[1] is an algorithm for sorting strings. This hybrid of quicksort and radix sort was originally suggested by P. Shackleton, as reported in one of C.A.R. Hoare's seminal papers on quicksort;[2]: 14 its modern incarnation was developed by Jon Bentley and Robert Sedgewick in the mid-1990s.[3] The algorithm is designed to exploit the proper