Algorithm to count the number of valid blocks in a permutation

(This is an attempt to do this N.log(N) worst case. Unfortunately it's wrong -- it sometimes undercounts. It incorrectly assumes you can find all the blocks by looking at only adjacent pairs of smaller valid blocks. In fact you have to look at triplets, quadruples, etc, to get all the larger blocks.)

You do it with a struct that represents a subblock and a queue for subblocks.

  struct
c_subblock
{
  int           index   ;  /* index into original array, head of subblock */
  int           width   ;  /* width of subblock > 0 */
  int           lo_value;
  c_subblock *  p_above ;  /* null or subblock above with same index */
};

Alloc an array of subblocks the same size as the original array, and init each subblock to have exactly one item in it. Add them to the queue as you go. If you start with array [ 7 3 4 1 2 6 5 8 ] you will end up with a queue like this:

queue: ( [7,7] [3,3] [4,4] [1,1] [2,2] [6,6] [5,5] [8,8] )

The { index, width, lo_value, p_above } values for subbblock [7,7] will be { 0, 1, 7, null }.

Now it's easy. Forgive the c-ish pseudo-code.

loop {
  c_subblock * const p_left      = Pop subblock from queue.
  int          const right_index = p_left.index + p_left.width;
  if ( right_index < length original array ) {
    // Find adjacent subblock on the right.
    // To do this you'll need the original array of length-1 subblocks.
    c_subblock const * p_right = array_basic_subblocks[ right_index ];
    do {
      Check the left/right subblocks to see if the two merged are also a subblock.
        If they are add a new merged subblock to the end of the queue.
      p_right = p_right.p_above;
    }
    while ( p_right );
  }
}

This will find them all I think. It's usually O(N log(N)), but it'll be O(N^2) for a fully sorted or anti-sorted list. I think there's an answer to this though -- when you build the original array of subblocks you look for s