xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/stdlib/radixsort.3 (revision a3315650db25238dce4f04adff4ed57f7738d5fd)
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32.\"     @(#)radixsort.3	8.2 (Berkeley) 1/27/94
33.\"
34.Dd January 27, 1994
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 "const unsigned char **base" "int nmemb" "const unsigned char *table" "unsigned endbyte"
45.Ft int
46.Fn sradixsort "const unsigned char **base" "int nmemb" "const unsigned char *table" "unsigned endbyte"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Fn radixsort
50and
51.Fn sradixsort
52functions
53are implementations of radix sort.
54.Pp
55These functions sort an array of pointers to byte strings, the initial
56member of which is referenced by
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 .
61.Pp
62Applications may specify a sort order by providing the
63.Fa table
64argument.
65If
66.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
67.Fa table
68must reference an array of
69.Dv UCHAR_MAX
70+ 1 bytes which contains the sort
71weight of each possible byte value.
72The end-of-string byte must have a sort weight of 0 or 255
73(for sorting in reverse order).
74More than one byte may have the same sort weight.
75The
76.Fa table
77argument
78is useful for applications which wish to sort different characters
79equally, for example, providing a table with the same weights
80for A-Z as for a-z will result in a case-insensitive sort.
81If
82.Fa table
83is NULL, the contents of the array are sorted in ascending order
84according to the
85.Tn ASCII
86order of the byte strings they reference and
87.Fa endbyte
88has a sorting weight of 0.
89.Pp
90The
91.Fn sradixsort
92function is stable, that is, if two elements compare as equal, their
93order in the sorted array is unchanged.
94The
95.Fn sradixsort
96function uses additional memory sufficient to hold
97.Fa nmemb
98pointers.
99.Pp
100The
101.Fn radixsort
102function is not stable, but uses no additional memory.
103.Pp
104These functions are variants of most-significant-byte radix sorting; in
105particular, see D.E. Knuth's Algorithm R and section 5.2.5, exercise 10.
106They take linear time relative to the number of bytes in the strings.
107.Sh RETURN VALUES
108Upon successful completion 0 is returned.
109Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
110.Va errno
111is set to indicate the error.
112.Sh ERRORS
113.Bl -tag -width Er
114.It Bq Er EINVAL
115The value of the
116.Fa endbyte
117element of
118.Fa table
119is not 0 or 255.
120.El
121.Pp
122Additionally, the
123.Fn sradixsort
124function
125may fail and set
126.Va errno
127for any of the errors specified for the library routine
128.Xr malloc 3 .
129.Sh SEE ALSO
130.Xr sort 1 ,
131.Xr qsort 3
132.Pp
133.Rs
134.%A Knuth, D.E.
135.%D 1968
136.%B "The Art of Computer Programming"
137.%T "Sorting and Searching"
138.%V Vol. 3
139.%P pp. 170-178
140.Re
141.Rs
142.%A Paige, R.
143.%D 1987
144.%T "Three Partition Refinement Algorithms"
145.%J "SIAM J. Comput."
146.%V Vol. 16
147.%N No. 6
148.Re
149.Rs
150.%A McIlroy, P.
151.%D 1993
152.%B "Engineering Radix Sort"
153.%T "Computing Systems"
154.%V Vol. 6:1
155.%P pp. 5-27
156.Re
157.Sh HISTORY
158The
159.Fn radixsort
160function first appeared in
161.Bx 4.4 .
162