Editing Bead sort (section)

== Implementation ==
This implementation is written in [[Python (programming language)|Python]]; it is assumed that the {{code|input_list}} will be a sequence of integers. The function returns a new list rather than mutating the one passed in, but it can be trivially modified to operate in place efficiently.
<syntaxhighlight lang="python3">
def beadsort(input_list):
    """Bead sort."""
    return_list = []
    # Initialize a 'transposed list' to contain as many elements as
    # the maximum value of the input -- in effect, taking the 'tallest'
    # column of input beads and laying it out flat
    transposed_list = [0] * max(input_list)
    for num in input_list:
        # For each element (each 'column of beads') of the input list,
        # 'lay the beads flat' by incrementing as many elements of the
        # transposed list as the column is tall.
        # These will accumulate atop previous additions.
        transposed_list[:num] = [n + 1 for n in transposed_list[:num]]
    # We've now dropped the beads. To de-transpose, we count the
    # 'bottommost row' of dropped beads, then mimic removing this
    # row by subtracting 1 from each 'column' of the transposed list.
    # When a column does not reach high enough for the current row,
    # its value in transposed_list will be <= 0.
    for i in range(len(input_list)):
        # Counting values > i is how we tell how many beads are in the
        # current 'bottommost row'. Note that Python's bools can be
        # evaluated as integers; True == 1 and False == 0.
        return_list.append(sum(n > i for n in transposed_list))
    # The resulting list is sorted in descending order
    return return_list
</syntaxhighlight>

We can also implement the algorithm using [[Java (programming language)|Java]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/bead-sort-natural-sorting-algorithm/|title=Bead Sort - A Natural Sorting Algorithm |last=Nigam |first=Palash
|date=10 June 2017 | publisher=GeeksForGeeks}}</ref>

<syntaxhighlight lang=java>
    public static void beadSort(int[] a)
    {
        // Find the maximum element
        int max = a[0];
        for (int i = 1; i < a.length; i++) {
            if (a[i] > max) {
                max = a[i];
            }
        }
 
        // allocating memory
        int[][] beads = new int[a.length][max];
 
        // mark the beads
        for (int i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < a[i]; j++) {
                beads[i][j] = 1;
            }
        }
 
        // move down the beads
        for (int j = 0; j < max; j++) {
            int sum = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
                sum += beads[i][j];
                beads[i][j] = 0;
            }
 
            for (int i = a.length - 1; i >= a.length - sum;
                 i--) {
                a[i] = j + 1;
            }
        }
    }
</syntaxhighlight>