What do we call the property of a sorting algorithm that gaurantees that records with the same key value occur in the same order in the sorted list as in the original, unsorted list?

Stable
  • Consistent
  • External
  • Linear

"Linear" refers to an algorithm cost.

"External" refers to an algorithm to sort records on disk.

"Consistent" is not standard terminology related to sorting.

"Stable" sorting algorithms preserve the relative order of equal-valued keys.