bars before partitioningand figure shows them again after partitioning figure twelve bars before partitioning figure twelve bars after partitioning the horizontal line represents the pivot value this is the value used to determine into which of the two groups an item is placed items with key value less than the pivot value go in the left part of the arrayand those with greater (or equalkey go in the right part (in the section on quicksortwe'll see that the pivot value can be the key value of an actual data itemcalled the pivot for nowit' just number the arrow labeled partition points to the leftmost item in the right (highersubarray this value is returned from the partitioning methodso it can be used by other methods that need to know where the division is for more vivid display of the partitioning processset the partition workshop applet to bars and press the run button the leftscan and rightscan pointers will zip toward each otherswapping bars as they go when they meetthe partition is complete you can choose any value you want for the pivot valuedepending on why you're doing the partition (such as choosing grade point average of for varietythe workshop applet chooses random number for the pivot value (the horizontal black lineeach time new or size is pressedbut the value is never too far from the average bar height after being partitionedthe data is by no means sortedit has simply been divided into two groups howeverit' more sorted than it was before as we'll see in the next sectionit doesn' take much more trouble to sort it completely