sort

n 1: a category of things distinguished by some common

characteristic or quality; "sculpture is a form of art";

"what kinds of desserts are there?" [syn: {kind}, {form},

{variety}]

2: an approximate definition or example; "she wore a sort of

magenta dress"; "she served a creamy sort of dessert

thing"

3: a person of a particular character or nature; "what sort of

person is he?"; "he's a good sort"

4: an operation that segregates items into groups according to

a specified criterion; "the bottleneck in mail delivery it

the process of sorting" [syn: {sorting}]

v 1: examine in order to test suitability; "screen these

samples"; "screen the job applicants" [syn: {screen}, {screen

out}, {sieve}]

2: arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you

classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?"

[syn: {classify}, {class}, {assort}, {sort out}, {separate}]

sort

1. To arrange a collection of items

in some specified order. The items - {records} in a file or

data structures in memory - consist of one or more {fields} or

members. One of these fields is designated as the "sort key"

which means the records will be ordered according to the value

of that field. Sometimes a sequence of key fields is

specified such that if all earlier keys are equal then the

later keys will be compared. Within each field some ordering

is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, {lexical

ordering}, or date.

Sorting is the subject of a great deal of study since it is a

common operation which can consume a lot of computer time.

There are many well-known sorting {algorithms} with different

time and space behaviour and programming {complexity}.

Examples are {quicksort}, {insertion sort}, {bubble sort},

{heap sort}, and {tree sort}. These employ many different

data structures to store sorted data, such as {arrays},

{linked lists}, and {binary trees}.

2. The {Unix} utility program for sorting lines of

files.

{Unix manual page}: sort(1).

(1997-02-12)