Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!enuxha!hurwitz
From: hurwitz@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Roger A. Hurwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Generic array manipulation routine
Keywords: C, arrays, pointers
Message-ID: <2163@enuxha.eas.asu.edu>
Date: 28 Jan 91 22:18:51 GMT
Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Lines: 23


Hello, Cpersons;

I was hoping for some help on how to write a single C function
for manipulating arrays, that can be called without change for
arrays with elements of differing types.  For example, the
qsort() function I use in Borland's Turbo C seems to do this.
Borland's qsort() has the following syntax;

	void qsort (void *base, size_t nelem, size_t width, 
		int (*fcmp) (const void *, const void *));

Where _base_ is a pointer to the 0th element in the array, _nelem_
is the number of elements in the array, and _width_ is the size
in bytes of each array element.  Given these parameters, I suppose
one could cast the void pointer to a char pointer and manipulate
the elements byte-by-byte, but I was wondering if there is a "better"
approach.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Roger Hurwitz
hurwitz@enuxha.eas.asu.edu