Thread: Sorting an array

Hi, I'm new in this forum and also new at programming

I'm taking a C course at college but our lecturer is quite lazy, so we need to investigate most of the stuff. Currently, I'm stuck working with an array exercise, after headdesking for a while I managed to declare and initialize one, but I've problems sorting its elements.

Exercise: creating an array of five elements as doubles, asking the user to enter values and print the sorted array.

This is what I wrote so far:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(){

double value[5]={'\0','\0','\0','\0','\0'};

/* User interaction module */
system("clear");

puts("Please enter five values:");
	scanf("%lf", &value[0]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[1]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[2]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[3]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[4]);

/* Printing the array */
printf("%lf, %lf, %lf, %lf, %lf \n", value[0], value[1], value[2], value[3],value[4]);

return(0);
}

I can ask for 5 numbers stored as doubles (as asked in the problem) but I don't know how to sort the numbers. I've tried everything but without success, so I'm asking for help here

Have you tried searching for "sorting algorithm" on the internet? Did your textbook try to teach you a sort you could use?

I searched and I found a function named qsort which can sort the values in the array but I don't really understand how it works the examples I found run, but I still don't know how to adapt them to my needs.

Our textbook is very basic, so it doesn't have much info :/

Using qsort would be a bad idea since your teacher probably wants to see you write the sort yourself. I'm actually kind of surprised that qsort is either one of the first things you found, or the thing you decided to go with, because sorting is basically the most commonly solved problem, here, and on the rest of the Web. Anything linked here will teach you how to write a sort. Try bubble sort.

Finished coding, and it works thank you for your help!

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(){

double value[5]={'\0','\0','\0','\0','\0'};
double keeper;
int num;

/* User interaction module */
system("clear");

puts("Please enter five values:");
	scanf("%lf", &value[0]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[1]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[2]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[3]);
	scanf("%lf", &value[4]);

for(num=1; num<=10; num++){
/* 0 - 1 */
if (value[0]<value[1]){
keeper=value[1];
value[1]=value[0];
value[0]=keeper;
keeper='\0';
}

/* 1 - 2 ] */
if (value[1]<value[2]){
keeper=value[2];
value[2]=value[1];
value[1]=keeper;
keeper='\0';
}

/* 2 - 3  */
if (value[2]<value[3]){
keeper=value[3];
value[3]=value[2];
value[2]=keeper;
keeper='\0';
}

/* 3 - 4 */
if (value[3]<value[4]){
keeper=value[4];
value[4]=value[3];
value[3]=keeper;
keeper='\0';
}
}
/* Printing the array */
printf("%lf, %lf, %lf, %lf, %lf \n", value[0], value[1], value[2], value[3],value[4]);

return(0);
}

It's totally unoptimized but, I'll do that tomorrow, for now going to sleep with something done already hehe, thanks!

Oh you're right :O I just deleted the keeper reset lines and initialized the array with zeros instead of '\0' 's it's my first time working a non-char array so I need to work on it.

Inside your loop you basically do the same thing 4 times just with different numbers, you should write a swap function to get rid of all the redundant code.

It would also be cool if there was a loop inside the other loop that repeated those four calls to your new swap function, just with different numbers. This would be really helpful if you wanted to, say, change your code to sort a list of 10, or 100 numbers (Imagine the work involved for such a change in your current code).

Okay, I changed some lines with loops and got this

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(){

double value[5]={0,0,0,0,0};
double keeper;
int i,j,k;

/* User interaction module */
	system("clear");
	puts("Please enter five values:");

/* Storing every value in the array */
	for(j=0;j<=4;j++)
		{
		scanf("%lf", &value[j]);
		 }

	for(i=1; i<=10; i++) /* Swaps through the re-arranged array */
		{ 
		for(k=0; k<=4; k++) /* Looping the switch for every pair */
			{ 
			if (value[k]<value[k+1]) /* Switching */
		 		{
				keeper=value[k+1];
				value[k+1]=value[k];
				value[k]=keeper;
				}
			}
		}

/* Printing the array */
	for(j=0;j<=4;j++)
		{
		printf("%lf ", value[j]);
		}
	
putchar('\n');
return(0);
}

It's indeed much better now and it works.

This is a substitution sort - very similar to a bubble sort. I suggest you study it, and memorize it for small sorting jobs.

Code:

#define SizeOfTheArray 10

int Array[SizeOfTheArray];
int i, j, temp;

//enter your numbers into the array, here.

//substitution sort

for(i = 0; i < sizeOfTheArray-1; i++) {    //the minus 1 is not essential, but optimal
   for(j = i+1; j < sizeOfTheArray; j++) {   //j starts with i+1, not zero 
      if(Array[i] > Array[j])  {  //replace > with < for descending sort
         temp = Array[i];
         Array[i] = Array[j];
         Array[j] = temp;
      }
   }
}

I believe that is the most intuitive and simplest sort around. (Gnome sort is simpler but not as intuitive, imo).

If you have less than 100 numbers to sort, it's fast. It's very slow on large amounts of numbers however, being just a step up from a bubble sort.