Sorting an Array of Strings

tony7059

I'm new to Fuze, so decided to play with how to sort an array of strings. It just uses a simple bubble sort routine, assuming a simple short list of strings you might want to order. Note that I wasn't sure how scoping worked in Fuze so got paranoid about how to make sure variables were local and the there would be some weird clash between returns from functions ...

/*
Compare numbers.
Returns 0 if equal, 1 if a is larger, or -1 if a is smaller.
*/
function compareNum( a, b )
    int compareNum = 0
    if a > b then
        compareNum = 1
    else
        if a < b then compareNum = -1 endif
    endif
return compareNum

/*
Compare two strings.
Return 0 if strings are equal, -1 if str1 is before, or 1 if str1 comes after.
Uses: compareNum( a, b)
*/
function compareStr(str1, str2)
    int compareStr = 0
    // Need the smallest length to stay in bounds because
    // we're comparing each set of characters between strings.
    int bounds = min( len( str1), len( str2 ) )
    for i = 0 to bounds loop
        compareStr = compareNum( charval( str1[i] ), charval( str2[i] )
        if compareStr != 0 then break endif
    repeat
return compareStr

/*
Sort an array of strings.  The strings are sorted "in place" (in the original array, as opposed to a copy that's returned.
*/
function sortStrs( ref list )
    int items = len( list )
    
    // BUBBLE SORT ROUTINE...
    for i = 0 to items loop
        for j  = 0 to items loop
            // Compare adjacent strings and swap when necessary...
            if compareStr( list[j], list[j+1] ) == 1 then
                string temp = list[j+1]
                list[j+1] = list[j]
                list[j] = temp
             endif
        repeat
    repeat
return void

// Simple Test:
inventory = [
"uvw",
"abc",
"wxy",
"tuv",
"bcd",
"tuv"
]

sortStrs( inventory )
loop
clear()
print( inventory )
update()
repeat

Hope this is useful or educational. Try Download ID of 29873MND18.