sorting structure members using pointers

Hello, I am working through the book C Primer Plus by Stephen Prata, and am stuck on problem 3 in Chapter 14. I have no classmates or teachers, and cannot for the life of me see why this thing won't sort.

The structure, along with the function that will sort the members that are the 'title' strings, is here:e in the sorting part, though I am using a simple "bubble sort" that should work.

Can anyone see what I am missing?

Code:

---

struct book {                  /* set up book template */
        char title[MAXTITL];
        char author[MAXAUTL];
        float value;
};

/* this function will output the books by alpabetized titles */

void print_by_title(const struct book * ptr, int totl)
{
        int i;                          /* an index */
                                        /* i will range from 0 to < totl */
        int array[totl];                /* this array will hold the indices of */
                                        /* the books, but will be in alphabetical */
                                        /* order. */
        int outer;                      /* used in sorting */
        int inner;                      /* used in sorting */
        int temp;                      /* used in sorting */

        /* initialize array[] */
        for(i = 0; i < totl; i++)
                array[i] = i;

        /* Alphabetize the list according to titles.  That is, */
        /* sort the indices of array[]. */

        for(outer = 0; outer < totl; outer++)
                for(inner = 0; inner < (totl - 1); inner++)
                {
                        if(strcmp((ptr + inner)->title, (ptr + (inner + 1))->title) > 0)
                        {
                                temp = array[inner + 1];
                                array[inner + 1] = array[inner];
                                array[inner] = temp;
                        }
                }

        /* print out the book list according to alphabetized titles */
        printf("\n");
        printf("Here are the books alphabetized by title:\n");
        printf("\n");
        for(i = 0; i < totl; i++)
                printf("%s by %s, $%.2f\n", (ptr + array[i])->title,
                                (ptr + array[i])->author, (ptr + array[i])->value);

---

Robert

With a bubblesort, you have to do the sort over and over again until no swaps took place.

That's not your whole function, right?

When sorting an index table without modifying the data table, you need to make sure that the changes to the index table are reflected in the comparisons for the sort. Here is an algorithm that does this, and also uses a mandatory optimization for bubble sort:

Code:

---

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

struct test {
  char *str;
  int val;
};

void print_sorted ( struct test a[], int n );

int main ( void )
{
  struct test a[] = {
    {"this", 123},
    {"is", 456},
    {"a", 789},
    {"test", 000}
  };

  print_sorted ( a, 4 );

  return 0;
}

void print_sorted ( struct test a[], int n )
{
  int i, j, save;
  int *index = malloc ( n * sizeof *index );

  if ( index == NULL )
    return;

  for ( i = 0; i < n; i++ )
    index[i] = i;

  for ( i = n - 1; i > 0; i-- ) {
    int swapped = 0;

    for ( j = 0; j < i; j++ ) {
      if ( strcmp ( a[index[j]].str, a[index[j + 1]].str ) > 0 ) {
        save = index[j];
        index[j] = index[j + 1];
        index[j + 1] = save;
        swapped = 1;
      }
    }

    if ( !swapped )
      break;
  }

  for ( i = 0; i < n; i++ )
    printf ( "%s : %d\n", a[index[i]].str, a[index[i]].val );

  free ( index );
}

---

Notice how I used index in the comparison too. That way you don't end up comparing things that you've already compared and botching up the order.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dwks

With a bubblesort, you have to do the sort over and over again until no swaps took place.

That's not your whole function, right?

---

Actually, I did neglect to include the terminal bracket "}", but that is all I did not include.

As I have read documentation about the "bubble sort" (knowing that it is the "worst" kind of sorting algorithm, but I just want to get the dang thing to work right now), I saw from various sources that if you looped through the outer loop once for each element in the set, that would be sufficient, even in the worst case scenario, unless I misuderstood.

Thank you, dwks.

@ Prelude:
Thank you, too,
and I will have to take my time to look carefully at what you have posted there.

>knowing that it is the "worst" kind of sorting algorithm
Well, it's easy to come up with something worse than bubble sort, but you're not likely to see anything worse in real code. ;)

>but I just want to get the dang thing to work right
In my opinion, selection sort is much easier to get right the first time than bubble sort, and it has more useful performance properties than bubble sort.

Well, here we go...
Looks like I will have another look at the "selection sort" type of algorithm as I work through this. That is good.

I'm in a position to tackle this now.

hehe... I'll get this C language, yes. I will just keep on hacking away until I finally understand it! :cool: