--- Michael Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 09:01:55AM -0700, Paul wrote:
> > I don't know the behavior for certain on a final return of zero,
> > but I don't think it does anything, which likely means that later
> > things may or may not reverse their order based on comparisons of
> > other pairs, so that the end result is unpredictable.
>
> You were doing great, until you got to here, where you got a little
> confusing. A final return of zero indicates $a and $b are equal.
> This means they will bunch together, and in the current
> implementation of sort (5.6.1's) they will stay in the same position
> they had in the original list (sort algorithms that do this are known
> as stable).
>
> The results of the sort is entirely predictable because the
> comparison subroutines returns consistent results.
And the light goes on!
Knew I was fuzzing something in there, but couldn't figure out what.
You mentiones stable algorithms, and I remembered reading it.
Thanks.
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