Floating an algorithm?

Question

I'm typesetting an algorithm using the algorithmx package as follows:

\begin{algorithm}
  \caption{\textsc{Whatever}}
  \begin{algorithmic}[1]
  ...
\end{algorithm}

However, I would like it to float like a figure. If I replace \begin{algorithm} with \begin{figure} it does float as I like, however, the caption does not look as pretty any more (I presume it is redefined by a sig-alternate class I am using for the whole document).

Is it possible to have both a nice caption and floating behaviour at the same time?

Answer 1

Thanks to Harald's advice I found the following two-line solution to my problem:

\usepackage{float}
\newfloat{algorithm}{t}{lop}

This was sufficient to make all my algorithm blocks to float exactly as I needed them to.

See also: "float" package reference.