Problem trying to use the C qsort function

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

float values[] = { 4, 1, 10, 9, 2, 5, -1, -9, -2,10000,-0.05,-3,-1.1 };

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

int main ()
{

    int i;

    qsort (values, 13, sizeof(float), compare);

    for (i = 0; i < 13; i++)
    {
        printf ("%f ",values[ i ]);
    }
    putchar('\n');

    return 0;
}

The result is:

-9.000000 -3.000000 -2.000000 -1.000000 -1.100000 -0.050000 1.000000 2.000000 4.000000 5.000000 9.000000 10.000000 10000.000000

It's wrong because the order of -1 and -1.1 is changed. I believe it is happening because my "compare" function.

How can I fix this?

Thanks

qsort c89 c
3 Answers

To add to existing answer by @AnT, you can automatically verify your qsort callback via SortChecker:

$ LD_PRELOAD=$HOME/sortcheck-master/bin/libsortcheck.so ./a.out
a.out[7133]: qsort: comparison function is not transitive (comparison function 0x4005cd (/home/iuriig/a.out+0x4005cd), called from 0x400614 (/home/iuriig/a.out+0x400614), cmdline is "./a.out")
-9.000000 -3.000000 -2.000000 -1.000000 -1.100000 -0.050000 1.000000 2.000000 4.000000 5.000000 9.000000 10.000000 10000.000000

This warning says that compare reports x < y, y < z and not x < z for some inputs. To further debug this issue, run with

export SORTCHECK_OPTIONS=raise=1

and examine generated codedump.

user_21705270
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