Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!brunix!man
From: man@brunix (Mark H. Nodine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Sorting gets very slow
Message-ID: <15849@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 21 Sep 89 18:32:46 GMT
References: <807taylorj@yvax.byu.edu>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: man@vali.UUCP (Mark H. Nodine)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 18

In article <807taylorj@yvax.byu.edu> taylorj@yvax.byu.edu writes:
>In message <14843@brunix.UUCP>, Mark <Somebody> complains about slow sorting on
>large stacks.
>
>I recommend that you solve the problem by keeping the stack in sorted order.
>When a new card is inserted you can do a binary search (which in large stacks

Unfortunately, this won't work for my stack because I have several different
backgrounds, all of which have a key field with the same name.  When I need
to create a new card, I suppose it is (barely) conceivable that I could go
to the card with the same background that is closest in sorted order to where
I want it to appear, but in general I can't just create it in the right place.

Some of the n log n sorting algorithms become n^2 when the list is in "almost
sorted" order.  My stack is usually "almost sorted", so I wonder it that was
the problem.

	--Mark