C library function to perform sort

Solution 1:

qsort() is the function you're looking for. You call it with a pointer to your array of data, the number of elements in that array, the size of each element and a comparison function.

It does its magic and your array is sorted in-place. An example follows:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int comp (const void * elem1, const void * elem2) 
{
    int f = *((int*)elem1);
    int s = *((int*)elem2);
    if (f > s) return  1;
    if (f < s) return -1;
    return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) 
{
    int x[] = {4,5,2,3,1,0,9,8,6,7};

    qsort (x, sizeof(x)/sizeof(*x), sizeof(*x), comp);

    for (int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++)
        printf ("%d ", x[i]);

    return 0;
}

Solution 2:

C/C++ standard library <stdlib.h> contains qsort function.

This is not the best quick sort implementation in the world but it fast enough and VERY EASY to be used... the formal syntax of qsort is:

qsort(<arrayname>,<size>,sizeof(<elementsize>),compare_function);

The only thing that you need to implement is the compare_function, which takes in two arguments of type "const void", which can be cast to appropriate data structure, and then return one of these three values:

• negative, if a should be before b
• 0, if a equal to b
• positive, if a should be after b

1. Comparing a list of integers:

simply cast a and b to integers if x < y,x-y is negative, x == y, x-y = 0, x > y, x-y is positive x-y is a shortcut way to do it :) reverse *x - *y to *y - *x for sorting in decreasing/reverse order

int compare_function(const void *a,const void *b) {
int *x = (int *) a;
int *y = (int *) b;
return *x - *y;
}

2. Comparing a list of strings:

For comparing string, you need strcmp function inside <string.h> lib. strcmp will by default return -ve,0,ve appropriately... to sort in reverse order, just reverse the sign returned by strcmp

#include <string.h>
int compare_function(const void *a,const void *b) {
return (strcmp((char *)a,(char *)b));
}

3. Comparing floating point numbers:

int compare_function(const void *a,const void *b) {
double *x = (double *) a;
double *y = (double *) b;
// return *x - *y; // this is WRONG...
if (*x < *y) return -1;
else if (*x > *y) return 1; return 0;
}

4. Comparing records based on a key:

Sometimes you need to sort a more complex stuffs, such as record. Here is the simplest way to do it using qsort library.

typedef struct {
int key;
double value;
} the_record;

int compare_function(const void *a,const void *b) {
the_record *x = (the_record *) a;
the_record *y = (the_record *) b;
return x->key - y->key;
}

Solution 3:

For sure: qsort() is an implementation of a sort (not necessarily quicksort as its name might suggest).

Try man 3 qsort or have a read at http://linux.die.net/man/3/qsort