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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: A very brief history of optimal sorting methods
Message-ID: <26169:Nov1919:39:4390@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 90 19:39:43 GMT
References: <4248@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <24945:Nov1218:54:5590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <MWM.90Nov16144102@raven.relay.pa.dec.com>
Organization: IR
Lines: 19

In article <MWM.90Nov16144102@raven.relay.pa.dec.com> mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes:
> Rather than arguing theory, I'll just ask for proof. How about making
> available sources to either 1) a plug-compatible replacement for
> qsort(3) or 2) a replacement for sort(1), so we can try some test
> cases and see how they work, and how well they work.

A pleasantly productive attitude. I am finishing up a slightly improved
clone of the sort program to contribute to BSD 4.4. Keith Bostic has
extracted a radixsort() library function from the first version and made
some improvements; I'm just settling copyright issues with him, and then
it'll be distributable under the usual Berkeley terms. I will probably
post the (PD) sort before the end of the year. If you're desperate for a
preliminary copy right now, send me a note.

I don't think I'll ever code under the qsort() interface, as passing a
comparison function to a sort is neither adequate for radix sort nor
reasonably efficient for most sorting problems.

---Dan