I am faced with a challenge. I have data on a linked list of structs. Do l move the data onto an array of structs then sort it using qsort() or do l use merge sort? This is the struct:
struct properties{
char *path;
char *name;
char *extension;
long int size;
long unsigned created;
long unsigned modified;
long unsigned access;
int permissions;
};
I would create an array of pointers to the structs and sort the pointer array using qsort. Using pointers instad of copying the entire structs will use less memory.
Create a comparator like this:
int propertyComparator(const void *s1, const void* s2) {
struct property *p1 = (struct property *)s1, *p2 = (struct property *)s2;
/* compare p1 and p2, below is just an example */
int result = strcmp(p1->name, p2->name);
return result;
}
Call it like this:
struct property *array;
/* add code to allocate and create array */
qsort(array, num_elements, sizeof array, propertyComparator);
Edit:
If you want to have a sorted linked list, mergesort is about as fast. Seems it depends on how fragmented the linked list is. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/1525419/646887
The reason I prefer qsort is that it is part of the C lib, so I don't have to write and maintain so much code. And it is always a fast choice.
