xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/stdlib/radixsort.3 (revision 5e4c038a45edbc7d63b7c2daa76e29f88b64a4e3)
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34.\"     from: @(#)radixsort.3	8.2 (Berkeley) 1/27/94
35.\"
36.Dd January 27, 1994
37.Dt RADIXSORT 3
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm radixsort ,
41.Nm sradixsort
42.Nd radix sort
43.Sh LIBRARY
44.Lb libc
45.Sh SYNOPSIS
46.Fd #include \*[Lt]limits.h\*[Gt]
47.Fd #include \*[Lt]stdlib.h\*[Gt]
48.Ft int
49.Fn radixsort "const u_char **base" "int nmemb" "u_char *table" "u_int endbyte"
50.Ft int
51.Fn sradixsort "const u_char **base" "int nmemb" "u_char *table" "u_int endbyte"
52.Sh DESCRIPTION
53The
54.Fn radixsort
55and
56.Fn sradixsort
57functions
58are implementations of radix sort.
59.Pp
60These functions sort an
61.Fa nmemb
62element array of pointers to byte strings, with
63the initial member of which is referenced by
64.Fa base .
65The byte strings may contain any values.
66End of strings is denoted
67by character which has same weight as user specified value
68.Fa endbyte .
69.Fa endbyte
70has to be between 0 and 255.
71.Pp
72Applications may specify a sort order by providing the
73.Fa table
74argument.
75If
76.Pf non- Dv NULL ,
77.Fa table
78must reference an array of
79.Dv UCHAR_MAX
80+ 1 bytes which contains the sort
81weight of each possible byte value.
82The end-of-string byte must have a sort weight of 0 or 255
83(for sorting in reverse order).
84More than one byte may have the same sort weight.
85The
86.Fa table
87argument
88is useful for applications which wish to sort different characters
89equally, for example, providing a table with the same weights
90for A-Z as for a-z will result in a case-insensitive sort.
91If
92.Fa table
93is NULL, the contents of the array are sorted in ascending order
94according to the
95.Tn ASCII
96order of the byte strings they reference and
97.Fa endbyte
98has a sorting weight of 0.
99.Pp
100The
101.Fn sradixsort
102function is stable, that is, if two elements compare as equal, their
103order in the sorted array is unchanged.
104The
105.Fn sradixsort
106function uses additional memory sufficient to hold
107.Fa nmemb
108pointers.
109.Pp
110The
111.Fn radixsort
112function is not stable, but uses no additional memory.
113.Pp
114These functions are variants of most-significant-byte radix sorting; in
115particular, see D.E. Knuth's Algorithm R and section 5.2.5, exercise 10.
116They take linear time relative to the number of bytes in the strings.
117.Sh RETURN VALUES
118Upon successful completion 0 is returned.
119Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
120.Va errno
121is set to indicate the error.
122.Sh ERRORS
123.Bl -tag -width Er
124.It Bq Er EINVAL
125The value of the
126.Fa endbyte
127element of
128.Fa table
129is not 0 or 255.
130.El
131.Pp
132Additionally, the
133.Fn sradixsort
134function
135may fail and set
136.Va errno
137for any of the errors specified for the library routine
138.Xr malloc 3 .
139.Sh SEE ALSO
140.Xr sort 1 ,
141.Xr qsort 3
142.Pp
143.Rs
144.%A Knuth, D.E.
145.%D 1968
146.%B "The Art of Computer Programming"
147.%T "Sorting and Searching"
148.%V Vol. 3
149.%P pp. 170-178
150.Re
151.Rs
152.%A Paige, R.
153.%D 1987
154.%T "Three Partition Refinement Algorithms"
155.%J "SIAM J. Comput."
156.%V Vol. 16
157.%N No. 6
158.Re
159.Rs
160.%A McIlroy, P.
161.%D 1993
162.%B "Engineering Radix Sort"
163.%T "Computing Systems"
164.%V Vol. 6:1
165.%P pp. 5-27
166.Re
167.Sh HISTORY
168The
169.Fn radixsort
170function first appeared in
171.Bx 4.4 .
172