Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!ames!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!paulc
From: paulc@microsoft.UUCP (Paul Canniff 2/1011)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: What kinds of keys do you sort?
Message-ID: <5674@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 9 May 89 18:54:53 GMT
References: <7032@saturn.ucsc.edu> <32269@sgi.SGI.COM>
Reply-To: paulc@microsoft.UUCP (Paul Canniff 2/1011)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 18

In article <32269@sgi.SGI.COM> thant@horus.SGI.COM (Thant Tessman) writes:
>
>Allow the user to hand the sorting tools the comparison function to use on 
>the keys.  That way you can sort anything.  C++ (a truely bitchin' language)
>is built for this sort of thing.  You can of course do this in C and probably
>many other languages.

Yep, this is a great way to re-use a sorting "kernel" which implements
the order of comparisons, etc.  But I am betting that, since the type
of keys are significant, that this new technique won't lend itself to
such an implementation.  In fact, were I a betting man, I would say
it has something to do with text strings and organizing them in some
complex cousin of the tree family.  There are some text-sorting techniques
currently in use that do this, though names escape me.  But, I guess
we'll just have to wait for publication to be sure.

Wkat C++ are you using?  How do you feel it stacks up vs. Ada for
building "components"?