Thread: qsort+structures: Cant figure what's wrong

Hi there, I'm trying to sort an structure with qsort. I'm reading the structure from a binary file.

It's a structure of ~ 60000 members, there are a couple of calculations in between which assign rmsd values for each member (this works fine),
and finally (ideally) the structure is sorted by lib.rmsd.
I couldnt have this last step working, as only the last member of the structure is listed, and with no rmsd value. I just dont know where to look anymore.
There are a couple of functions I havent listed in order to keep it as simple as possible.
Any help would be really appreciated,
thanks in advance

Code:

typedef struct library59k { 
   int numModel;          
   char combination[6];
   float rmsd;
   float coordinates[28][3];
} lib; 

int struct_cmp_by_rmsd(const void *a, const void *b)
{
    lib *ia = (lib *)a;
    lib *ib = (lib *)b;
    return (int)(ia->rmsd - ib->rmsd);
} 

void print_struct_array(lib *array, size_t len)
{
    size_t i;
    for(i=0; i<len; i++)
        printf("%5i %s %.5f\n", array[i].numModel, array[i].combination, array[i].rmsd);
}

int main()
{
	 
lib member;
lib *p;
p = &member;		

float coord_target[28][3], modlib_extreme[8][3], target_ext[8][3];//alineado[28][3], 
int j,k,l=1,totalresidues;
FILE *ptr59k, *out; 



ptr59k = fopen( "59kbin.dat", "rb" );
   if ( ptr59k == NULL ) {
      printf( "cant open file.\n" );
   } 
 
out = fopen( "outfile", "w" );
   if ( out == NULL ) {
      printf( "cant open file.\n" );
   } 
      
totalresidues=GetCoordPDBdata(coord_target,l);
fprintf(out,"cantres %i\n",totalresidues);

for(k=START;k<2;k++)
{
	fprintf(out,"window %i\n",l++);
	
      while ( !feof( ptr59k ) ) 
	  { 
         fread(p, sizeof( lib ), 1, ptr59k );

         if ( p->numModel != 0 )
		 {
			coord_extreme(p->coordinates,modlib_extreme);
			
			GetCoordPDBdata(coord_target,l);
			
			coord_extreme(coord_target,target_ext);
			
			p->rmsd=superposicion(target_ext,modlib_extreme);
			
                       
			fwrite( p, sizeof( lib ), 1, ptr59k );
			
            fprintf(out, "%5i ", p->numModel );
			for(j=0;j<5;j++) fprintf(out,"%c",p->combination[j]);
			fprintf(out, " %.6f\n", p->rmsd );
			
		} 
      } 

rewind(ptr59k);
	size_t member_len = sizeof(member) / sizeof(lib);
 
      qsort(p, member_len, sizeof(lib), struct_cmp_by_rmsd);
 
	print_struct_array(p, member_len);
			
}

fclose(out);
fclose(ptr59k);
 
   return 0;
 }

Code:

qsort(p, member_len, sizeof(lib), struct_cmp_by_rmsd);

p points to one struct (specifically, to member). It doesn't make sense to sort one single object.

There's also this:

Code:

size_t member_len = sizeof(member) / sizeof(lib);

member_len is being passed to qsort() as the parameter that specifies the number of elements to be processed. member is a lib, so sizeof(member) / sizeof(lib) is always 1. This is, of course, the correct number of elements in your "array", but the calculation doesn't make sense. If member were an array, the calculation might make sense (if all elements of the array were being used), but currently, it doesn't. You're not actually creating anything to sort with this code.

I realized the errors a couple of hours after I posted.
thanks for the answers