Thread: qsort question

Originally Posted by Hops

Is [there] a better way to tell the comparison function which column to sort by?

In C? Nope not really, assuming you're not willing to make one comparison function for each possible sort column, or store a pointer to the sort column in the matrix itself.

For small numbers of sorting, it could be done pretty easily this way:

Code:

inline int sortrowsCompareFcn(const void * a,const void * b, int nSortColumn)
{
	double** val1 = (double**) a;
	double** val2 = (double**) b;

	if(val1[0][nSortColumn] < val2[0][nSortColumn]  )
	{
		return -1;
	}
	else if(val1[0][nSortColumn] > val2[0][nSortColumn]  )
	{
		return 1;
	}
	else
	{
		return 0;
	}
}

#define SORTNAME(n) sortrowsCompareFcn##n
#define SORTN(n) int SORTNAME(n)(const void * a,const void * b) { sortrowsCompareFcn(a, b, n); }

SORTN(0)
SORTN(1)
SORTN(2)
SORTN(3)
SORTN(4)
SORTN(5)
SORTN(6)
SORTN(7)
SORTN(8)
SORTN(9)
SORTN(10)

typedef int (*SortFunc)(void *a, void *b);
SortFunc sortFunctions[11] = {
   SORTNAME(0),
   SORTNAME(1),
   SORTNAME(2),
   SORTNAME(3),
   SORTNAME(4),
   SORTNAME(5),
   SORTNAME(6),
   SORTNAME(7),
   SORTNAME(8),
   SORTNAME(9),
   SORTNAME(10),
}

void sortrows(double** pMatrix,int nStartRow, int nStopRow, int nColumn)
{
	qsort((void*) (pMatrix+nStartRow),nStopRow-nStartRow+1,sizeof(double*), sortFunctions[n]);
}

--
Mats

Originally Posted by Hops

How would one store a pointer in the matrix itself? Does that mean that I would need a copy of the pointer for each row of the matrix?

I don't know what iMalc was trying to say, but whatever it was, I'm sure it would require some change to your datastructure itself.

--
Mats

Originally Posted by matsp

I don't know what iMalc was trying to say, but whatever it was, I'm sure it would require some change to your datastructure itself.

--
Mats

Yes, the data structure would have to be changed to some struct instead of just a double**. Of course being C you lose the ability to use the [] operator then. Or you could be really evil and cast the pointer to a double or something horrid.

I had thought of the array of function pointers, but hadn't thought of the macro trickery to make it easier to produce the array of them.

By the way, I just thought of another trick that will do it:

Code:

void sortrows(double** pMatrix,int nStartRow, int nStopRow, int nColumn)
{
	sortrowsCompareFcn(NULL, &nColumn);  // Set up our sort column.
	qsort((void*) (pMatrix+nStartRow), nStopRow-nStartRow+1, sizeof(double*), &sortrowsCompareFcn);
}

int sortrowsCompareFcn(const void * a, const void * b)
{
	static int nSortColumn= 0;
	if (a == NULL)
	{
		nSortColumn = *(int*)b;
		return 0;
	}

	double** val1 = (double**) a;
	double** val2 = (double**) b;

	if (val1[0][nSortColumn] < val2[0][nSortColumn])
		return -1;
	if (val1[0][nSortColumn] > val2[0][nSortColumn])
		return 1;
	return 0;
}

static != global
This works since the params can never be NULL during the sort.

So yeah I take back what I said about it not being possible.