Alex Snast: > However i have no idea how to access the values of a data structure that > doesn't allow random access.<
Well, a sorting algorithm can work in-place, sorting the position of the items inside the given collection, or it can create a new data structure with the items (in Python all items are references). If the output of the sorting algorithm is an array (that is a python list), and the input isn't a list, then you can list-fy your input data and then sort that list in-place, and return it. Like this def mysort(any_iterable): data = list(any_iterable) # sort data... return data If the input is a list, you can sort it in place. Finally you may want to return other kinds of collections, like sorting a linked list and returning it (you can create a chain of nested lists, and then sort them with a merge sort), but in Python that's not much common. Bye, bearophile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
