Bubble Sorting a string in an Array

Question

I am trying to bubble sort the LastName property (under a struct StudentRecord, hence the names) of an array using bubble sort. But I am having trouble doing so.

I am receiving the error (I'm using MinGW to compile):

Invalid array assignment

Here is my code:

void option2 (StudentRecord student[], int n)
{
   int pass = 1;
   bool done = false;
   StudentRecord temp;
   while (!done && pass <= n-1)
   {
      done = true;
      for (int i = n-1; i >= pass; i--)
      {
         if (student[i].lastName < student[i-1].lastName)
         {
            temp.lastName = student[i].lastName;
            student[i].lastName = student[i-1].lastName;
            student[i-1].lastName = temp.lastName;
            done = false;
         }
      }
      pass++;
   }
}

What line does the error occur on? Why do you think this happens? What type is lastName? — Cameron
– Cameron, Commented Dec 5, 2012 at 20:28
What does StudentRecord look like? If .lastName is a char[] you can't assign it like that. You need to use strcpy() or similar to move the bytes from one block to the other. — Mark Stevens
– Mark Stevens, Commented Dec 5, 2012 at 20:28

Cameron · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-05 20:32:16Z

2

It looks like lastName is an array of characters.

You can't assign entire arrays to each other; you need to use strcpy() (#include <cstring>) to copy one to the other. Additionally, using < with character arrays will cause the memory addresses of the first elements in each array to be compared, not the entire string of characters; use strcmp for this (which returns < 0 iff the first parameter is lexicographically < the second parameter).

Note you can (and probably should) use std::string instead (#include <string>), which will automatically provide copying, comparison, and dynamic growth for you transparently.

answered Dec 5, 2012 at 20:32

Cameron

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