Stability in sorting means whether a sort algorithm maintains the relative order of the equals keys of the original input in the result output.
So a sorting algorithm is said to be stable if two objects with equal keys appear in the same order in sorted output as they appear in the input unsorted array.
Consider a list of pairs:
(1, 2) (9, 7) (3, 4) (8, 6) (9, 3)
Now we will sort the list using the first element of each pair.
A stable sorting of this list will output the below list:
(1, 2) (3, 4) (8, 6) (9, 7) (9, 3)
Because (9, 3) appears after (9, 7) in the original list as well.
An unstable sorting will output the below list:
(1, 2) (3, 4) (8, 6) (9, 3) (9, 7)
Unstable sort may generate the same output as the stable sort but not always.
Well-known stable sorts:
Well-known unstable sorts: