xref: /386bsd/usr/src/lib/libc/stdlib/radixsort.3 (revision a2142627)
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32.\"     @(#)radixsort.3	5.5 (Berkeley) 4/19/91
33.\"
34.Dd April 19, 1991
35.Dt RADIXSORT 3
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm radixsort
39.Nd radix sort
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.Fd #include <limits.h>
42.Fd #include <stdlib.h>
43.Ft int
44.Fn radixsort "u_char **base" "int nmemb" "u_char *table" "u_char endbyte"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Fn radixsort
48function
49is a modified radix sort.
50.Pp
51The
52.Fn radixsort
53function sorts an array of
54.Fa nmemb
55pointers to byte strings, the initial member of which is referenced
56by
57.Fa base .
58The byte strings may contain any values; the end of each string
59is denoted by the user-specified value
60.Fa endbyte .
61The contents of the array are sorted in ascending order according
62to the
63.Tn ASCII
64order of the byte strings they reference.
65.Pp
66Applications may specify a sort order by providing the
67.Fa table
68argument.
69If
70.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
71.Fa table
72must reference an array of
73.Dv UCHAR_MAX
74+ 1 bytes which contains the sort
75weight of each possible byte value.
76The end-of-string byte must have a sort weight of 0.
77More than one byte may have the same sort weight.
78The
79.Fa table
80argument
81is useful for applications which wish to sort different characters
82equally; for example, providing a table with the same weights
83for A-Z as for a-z will result in a case-insensitive sort.
84.Pp
85The
86.Fn radixsort
87function
88is stable, that is, if two elements compare as equal, their order in
89the sorted array is unchanged.
90.Pp
91The
92.Fn radixsort
93function
94is a variant of most-significant-byte radix sorting; in particular, see
95D.E. Knuth's Algorithm R and section 5.2.5, exercise 10.
96The
97.Fn radixsort
98function
99takes linear time relative to the number of bytes in the strings.
100.Sh RETURN VALUES
101Upon successful completion 0 is returned.
102Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
103.Va errno
104is set to indicate the error.
105.Sh ERRORS
106The
107.Fn radixsort
108function
109may fail and set
110.Va errno
111for any of the errors specified for the library routine
112.Xr malloc 3 .
113.Sh SEE ALSO
114.Xr sort 1 ,
115.Xr qsort 3
116.Pp
117.Rs
118.%A Knuth, D.E.
119.%D 1968
120.%B "The Art of Computer Programming"
121.%T "Sorting and Searching"
122.%V Vol. 3
123.%P pp. 170-178
124.Re
125.Rs
126.%A Paige, R.
127.%D 1987
128.%T "Three Partition Refinement Algorithms"
129.%J "SIAM J. Comput."
130.%V Vol. 16
131.%N No. 6
132.Re
133.Sh HISTORY
134The
135.Fn radixsort
136function is
137.Ud .
138.Sh BUGS
139The
140.Fa nmemb
141argument
142must be less than the maximum integer,
143.Dv INT_MAX .
144