Initializing help system before first use

qsort

qsort


Purpose
Sort a list or an array or (a subset of) the indices of an array.
Synopsis
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, lvals:list)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, vals:array of integer|real|string)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cvals:array|list of array, ndx:array)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cvals:array|list of array, ndx:array, sel:set)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cvals:array|list of array, lndx:list)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cvals:array|list of array, lndx:list, sel:set)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cmpfct:string, cmpctx:?, vals:array, ndx:array)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cmpfct:string, cmpctx:?, vals:array, ndx:array, sel:set)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cmpfct:string, cmpctx:?, vals:array, lndx:list)
procedure qsort(sense:boolean, cmpfct:string, cmpctx:?, vals:array, lndx:list, sel:set)
Arguments
sense 
Sense of the sorting:
SYS_UP 
Ascending order
SYS_DOWN 
Descending order
lvals 
List to be sorted
vals 
One-dimensional array to be sorted
cvals 
One-dimensional array to be sorted or list of one-dimensional arrays
cmpfct 
The name of a comparator function of the form function cmpfct(cmpctx,e1,e2):integer that behaves as compare with e1 and e2 of the same type as the array to sort
cmpctx 
The value to be passed as the first argument to cmpfct (this parameter is not used by qsort)
ndx 
One-dimensional array of the same type and size as the indexing set of vals
lndx 
List of the same type as the indexing set of vals
sel 
Subset of the indexing set of vals
Example
The following example sorts an array of real numbers:
declarations
 ar: array(1..10) of real
end-declarations

ar:: [1.2, -3, -8, 10.5, 4, 7, 2.9, -1, 0, 5]
qsort(true, ar)
writeln("Sorted array: ", ar)
Further information
1. In the first two versions of the procedure (with two arguments, sense and vals or lvals) the input array (list) vals ( lvals) is overwritten by the resulting sorted array (list).
2. When an array ndx is provided, the resulting sorted array is returned in the argument ndx in the form of its sorted index set. If a selection set sel of indices is provided, only the specified indices are processed.
3. When a list lndx is provided, the resulting sorted array is returned in the argument lndx in the form of a list of sorted indices. If a selection set sel of indices is provided, only the specified indices are processed.
4. When applied to a dynamic array this procedure processes all indices of the index set including those not referring to an existing cell (a subset of the indexing set sel can be used to select only the existing entries).
5. The second version of the routine can handle arrays of integers, reals and strings. Other versions also accept module types supporting ordering (like text or date for instance).
6. When the parameter cvals is a list of arrays it is expected that all these arrays have one dimension and are all indiced by the same set. The list can contain up to 10 arrays. When performing the sorting the routine will use the first array values as the primary sorting criteria and then the following array in case of equality.
7. A comparator routine may also be provided in the form of user-defined function which name is cmpfct (the function must be declared public). The first parameter of this function is given via cmpctx that can be of any scalar type (including a record), it is not used by the qsort algorithm but may be employed by the comparator function to store data required for the comparison. The 2 other arguments, that are of the same type as the array to sort, are the elements to compare: the function must return 0 if the 2 elements are identical, -1 if the first element is smaller or 1 otherwise. When using this form there is no restriction on the type of the array to sort.
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