1QSORT(3) Linux Programmer's Manual QSORT(3)
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6 qsort, qsort_r - sort an array
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9 #include <stdlib.h>
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11 void qsort(void *base, size_t nmemb, size_t size,
12 int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));
13 void qsort_r(void *base, size_t nmemb, size_t size,
14 int (*compar)(const void *, const void *, void *),
15 void *arg);
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17 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
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19 qsort_r():
20 _GNU_SOURCE
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23 The qsort() function sorts an array with nmemb elements of size size.
24 The base argument points to the start of the array.
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26 The contents of the array are sorted in ascending order according to a
27 comparison function pointed to by compar, which is called with two ar‐
28 guments that point to the objects being compared.
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30 The comparison function must return an integer less than, equal to, or
31 greater than zero if the first argument is considered to be respec‐
32 tively less than, equal to, or greater than the second. If two members
33 compare as equal, their order in the sorted array is undefined.
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35 The qsort_r() function is identical to qsort() except that the compari‐
36 son function compar takes a third argument. A pointer is passed to the
37 comparison function via arg. In this way, the comparison function does
38 not need to use global variables to pass through arbitrary arguments,
39 and is therefore reentrant and safe to use in threads.
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42 The qsort() and qsort_r() functions return no value.
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45 qsort_r() was added to glibc in version 2.8.
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48 For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see at‐
49 tributes(7).
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51 ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
52 │Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
53 ├────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
54 │qsort(), qsort_r() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
55 └────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
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58 qsort(): POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C89, C99, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
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61 To compare C strings, the comparison function can call strcmp(3), as
62 shown in the example below.
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65 For one example of use, see the example under bsearch(3).
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67 Another example is the following program, which sorts the strings given
68 in its command-line arguments:
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70 #include <stdio.h>
71 #include <stdlib.h>
72 #include <string.h>
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74 static int
75 cmpstringp(const void *p1, const void *p2)
76 {
77 /* The actual arguments to this function are "pointers to
78 pointers to char", but strcmp(3) arguments are "pointers
79 to char", hence the following cast plus dereference. */
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81 return strcmp(*(const char **) p1, *(const char **) p2);
82 }
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84 int
85 main(int argc, char *argv[])
86 {
87 if (argc < 2) {
88 fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <string>...\n", argv[0]);
89 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
90 }
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92 qsort(&argv[1], argc - 1, sizeof(char *), cmpstringp);
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94 for (int j = 1; j < argc; j++)
95 puts(argv[j]);
96 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
97 }
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100 sort(1), alphasort(3), strcmp(3), versionsort(3)
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103 This page is part of release 5.13 of the Linux man-pages project. A
104 description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
105 latest version of this page, can be found at
106 https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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110 2021-03-22 QSORT(3)