C Academy · Lesson

qsort with Comparators

Standard library callbacks.

The Standard qsort

The standard library provides qsort in <stdlib.h>, a generic sort that works on any array type by using a comparator callback.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int cmp_int(const void *a, const void *b) {
    int x = *(const int *)a;
    int y = *(const int *)b;
    return (x > y) - (x < y);
}

int main(void) {
    int a[] = {3, 1, 2};
    qsort(a, 3, sizeof(int), cmp_int);
    printf("%d %d %d\n", a[0], a[1], a[2]);
    return 0;
}

The qsort Signature

qsort(base, count, size, compare) takes the array start, element count, element size, and a comparator.

It is generic because it works with raw bytes plus your comparator.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int cmp(const void *a, const void *b) {
    return *(const int*)a - *(const int*)b;
}

int main(void) {
    int a[] = {9, 4, 7, 1};
    qsort(a, 4, sizeof(int), cmp);
    for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) printf("%d ", a[i]);
    printf("\n");
    return 0;
}

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