xref: /openbsd-src/lib/libc/stdlib/radixsort.3 (revision b2ea75c1b17e1a9a339660e7ed45cd24946b230e)
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32.\"	$OpenBSD: radixsort.3,v 1.7 2001/08/06 10:42:26 mpech Exp $
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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 u_char **base" "int nmemb" "const u_char *table" "u_int endbyte"
45.Ft int
46.Fn sradixsort "const u_char **base" "int nmemb" "const u_char *table" "u_int endbyte"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Fn radixsort
50and
51.Fn sradixsort
52functions are implementations of radix sort.
53.Pp
54These functions sort an array of pointers to byte strings, the initial
55member of which is referenced by
56.Fa base .
57The byte strings may contain any values; the end of each string
58is denoted by the user-specified value
59.Fa endbyte .
60.Pp
61Applications may specify a sort order by providing the
62.Fa table
63argument.
64If non-null,
65.Fa table
66must reference an array of
67.Dv UCHAR_MAX
68+ 1 bytes which contains the sort weight of each possible byte value.
69The end-of-string byte must have a sort weight of 0 or 255
70(for sorting in reverse order).
71More than one byte may have the same sort weight.
72The
73.Fa table
74argument is useful for applications which wish to sort different characters
75equally, for example, providing a table with the same weights
76for A-Z as for a-z will result in a case-insensitive sort.
77If
78.Fa table
79is
80.Dv NULL ,
81the contents of the array are sorted in ascending order according to the
82.Tn ASCII
83order of the byte strings they reference and
84.Fa endbyte
85has a sorting weight of 0.
86.Pp
87The
88.Fn sradixsort
89function is stable, that is, if two elements compare as equal, their
90order in the sorted array is unchanged.
91The
92.Fn sradixsort
93function uses additional memory sufficient to hold
94.Fa nmemb
95pointers.
96.Pp
97The
98.Fn radixsort
99function is not stable, but uses no additional memory.
100.Pp
101These functions are variants of most-significant-byte radix sorting; in
102particular, see D.E. Knuth's Algorithm R and section 5.2.5, exercise 10.
103They take linear time relative to the number of bytes in the strings.
104.Sh RETURN VALUES
105Upon successful completion 0 is returned.
106Otherwise, \-1 is returned and the global variable
107.Va errno
108is set to indicate the error.
109.Sh ERRORS
110.Bl -tag -width Er
111.It Bq Er EINVAL
112The value of the
113.Fa endbyte
114element of
115.Fa table
116is not 0 or 255.
117.El
118.Pp
119Additionally, the
120.Fn sradixsort
121function may fail and set
122.Va errno
123for any of the errors specified for the library routine
124.Xr malloc 3 .
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr sort 1 ,
127.Xr qsort 3
128.Rs
129.%A Knuth, D.E.
130.%D 1968
131.%B "The Art of Computer Programming"
132.%T "Sorting and Searching"
133.%V Vol. 3
134.%P pp. 170-178
135.Re
136.Rs
137.%A Paige, R.
138.%D 1987
139.%T "Three Partition Refinement Algorithms"
140.%J "SIAM J. Comput."
141.%V Vol. 16
142.%N No. 6
143.Re
144.Rs
145.%A McIlroy, P.
146.%D 1993
147.%B "Engineering Radix Sort"
148.%T "Computing Systems"
149.%V Vol. 6:1
150.%P pp. 5-27
151.Re
152.Sh HISTORY
153The
154.Fn radixsort
155function first appeared in
156.Bx 4.4 .
157