RADIXSORT

Section: C Library Functions (3)
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BSD mandoc
 

NAME

radixsort - radix sort  

SYNOPSIS

Fd #include <limits.h> Fd #include <stdlib.h> Ft int Fn radixsort u_char **base int nmemb u_char *table u_char endbyte  

DESCRIPTION

The Fn radixsort function is a modified radix sort.

The Fn radixsort function sorts an array of Fa nmemb pointers to byte strings, the initial member of which is referenced by Fa base . The byte strings may contain any values; the end of each string is denoted by the user-specified value Fa endbyte . The contents of the array are sorted in ascending order according to the ASCII order of the byte strings they reference.

Applications may specify a sort order by providing the Fa table argument. If non- NULL , Fa table must reference an array of UCHAR_MAX + 1 bytes which contains the sort weight of each possible byte value. The end-of-string byte must have a sort weight of 0. More than one byte may have the same sort weight. The Fa table argument is useful for applications which wish to sort different characters equally; for example, providing a table with the same weights for A-Z as for a-z will result in a case-insensitive sort.

The Fn radixsort function is stable, that is, if two elements compare as equal, their order in the sorted array is unchanged.

The Fn radixsort function is a variant of most-significant-byte radix sorting; in particular, see D.E. Knuth's Algorithm R and section 5.2.5, exercise 10. The Fn radixsort function takes linear time relative to the number of bytes in the strings.  

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion 0 is returned. Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.  

ERRORS

The Fn radixsort function may fail and set errno for any of the errors specified for the library routine malloc(3).  

SEE ALSO

sort(1), qsort(3)

Knuth, D.E. 1968 "The Art of Computer Programming" "Sorting and Searching" Vol. 3 pp. 170-178
Paige, R. 1987 "Three Partition Refinement Algorithms" "SIAM J. Comput." Vol. 16 No. 6
 

HISTORY

The Fn radixsort function is Ud .  

BUGS

The Fa nmemb argument must be less than the maximum integer, INT_MAX


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUES
ERRORS
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
BUGS

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Time: 06:42:49 GMT, May 19, 2025