std::ranges::partial_sort - cppreference.com

1) Rearranges elements such that the range [first, middle) contains the sorted middle - first smallest elements in the range [first, last).

The order of equal elements is not guaranteed to be preserved. The order of the remaining elements in the range [middle, last) is unspecified.

The elements are compared using the given binary comparison function comp and projected using proj function object.

2) Same as (1), but uses r as the range, as if using ranges::begin(r) as first and ranges::end(r) as last.

The function-like entities described on this page are algorithm function objects (informally known as niebloids), that is:

An iterator equal to last.

𝓞(N·log(M)) comparisons and twice as many projections, where N is ranges::distance(first, last), M is ranges::distance(first, middle).

struct partial_sort_fn
{
    template<std::random_access_iterator I, std::sentinel_for<I> S,
             class Comp = ranges::less, class Proj = std::identity>
    requires std::sortable<I, Comp, Proj>
    constexpr I
        operator()(I first, I middle, S last, Comp comp = {}, Proj proj = {}) const
    {
        if (first == middle)
            return ranges::next(first, last);
        ranges::make_heap(first, middle, comp, proj);
        auto it {middle};
        for (; it != last; ++it)
        {
            if (std::invoke(comp, std::invoke(proj, *it), std::invoke(proj, *first)))
            {
                ranges::pop_heap(first, middle, comp, proj);
                ranges::iter_swap(middle - 1, it);
                ranges::push_heap(first, middle, comp, proj);
            }
        }
        ranges::sort_heap(first, middle, comp, proj);
        return it;
    }

    template<ranges::random_access_range R, class Comp = ranges::less,
             class Proj = std::identity>
    requires std::sortable<ranges::iterator_t<R>, Comp, Proj>
    constexpr ranges::borrowed_iterator_t<R>
        operator()(R&& r, ranges::iterator_t<R> middle, Comp comp = {}, Proj proj = {}) const
    {
        return (*this)(ranges::begin(r), std::move(middle), ranges::end(r),
                       std::move(comp), std::move(proj));
    }
};

inline constexpr partial_sort_fn partial_sort {};

#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

void print(const auto& v)
{
    for (const char e : v)
        std::cout << e << ' ';
    std::cout << '\n';
}

void underscore(int n)
{
    while (n-- > 0)
        std::cout << "^ ";
    std::cout << '\n';
}

int main()
{
    static_assert('A' < 'a');
    std::vector<char> v {'x', 'P', 'y', 'C', 'z', 'w', 'P', 'o'};
    print(v);
    const int m {3};
    std::ranges::partial_sort(v, v.begin() + m);
    print(v), underscore(m);

    static_assert('1' < 'a');
    std::string s {"3a1b41c5"};
    print(s);
    std::ranges::partial_sort(s.begin(), s.begin() + m, s.end(), std::greater {});
    print(s), underscore(m);
}

Output:

x P y C z w P o
C P P y z x w o
^ ^ ^
3 a 1 b 4 1 c 5
c b a 1 3 1 4 5
^ ^ ^