Infinite recursion in JavaScript quicksort?

I think that the issue here is that your partitioning step does not necessarily shrink the input array. For example, let’s trace what happens if you try sorting [1, 2]. In this case, your pivot element will be the element 2. Since 1 > 2 is false, 1 is added to the list l. Since 2 > 2 is false, 2 is added to the list l. As a result, your recursive call on the list l will have exactly the same arguments as your original call, causing infinite recursion.

To fix this, try splitting the input into three lists – one of smaller values, one of equal values, and one of greater values. This code is shown here:

function sort(data){
  if (data.length < 2){
    return data;
  } else {
    var l = [];
    var r = [];
    var e = [];
    var i = 0;
    var pivot = (data.length / 2) | 0;

    for(i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
      if (data[i] > data[pivot]) {
        r.push(data[i]);
      } else if (data[i] < data[pivot]) {
        l.push(data[i]);
      } else {
        e.push(data[i]);
      }
    }  
    return sort(l).concat(e, sort(r)); 
  }
}

This new version explicitly groups the equal elements into their own list, so they aren’t recursively sorted by either of the recursive calls. It also gracefully handles duplicate elements.