C a comparator of int for an array of pointers - c

Question

I'm following LCTHW tutorial and I have a task to do.
This is the data structure:
typedef struct DArray {
int end;
int max;
size_t element_size;
size_t expand_rate;
void **contents;
} DArray;
I have declared a typedef:
typedef int (*DArray_compare) (const void *a, const void *b);
When I create a sorting function, I pass to it a DArray_compare, the problem is that I can't figure out how to do an example of this comparator.
I tried to do something like this:
int compare(const void *a, const void *b)
{
int i = (int)*a;
int k = (int)*b;
printf("%d %d\n", i, k);
return i - k;
}
But I get an error:
error: operand of type 'void' where arithmetic or pointer type is required int i = (int)*a;
The question is: without changing the struct and the typedef of the comparator, I want to create a comparator that compares int, how can I do it?

Answer 1

int i = *(int*)a;
// This one has more parens to make it really obvious what your intent is.
int k = *((int*)b);
The second line (k=) is easiest to explain cos of all the brackets. You can rewrite it as follows:
// Cast b from a pointer to a void into a pointer to an int.
int *X = (int*)b;
// k = "what X is pointing to" or "the contents of X"
int k = *X;
edit:
I think ralu's comment is suggesting you change all the void* to int* which is a much safer solution if you have that power.
typedef int (*DArray_compare) (const int *a, const int *b);
int compare(const int *a, const int *b)
{
int i = *a;
int k = *b;
...

Answer 2

A comparison function for use with bsearch() or qsort() from the standard C library for arrays of DArray structures might look like:
int compare(const void *a, const void *b)
{
const DArray *d1 = a;
const DArray *d2 = b;
if (d1->end < d2->end)
return -1;
else if (d1->end > d2->end)
return +1;
else if (d1->max < d2->max)
return -1;
else if (d2->max > d2->max)
return +1;
else
return 0;
}
Clearly, if you need to compare other fields, you can add those comparisons into the framework above quite easily. The general structure of the function is my recommended way of writing such comparators. You can add explicit casts to the assignment lines if you wish; C++ would require them, but C does not.
Note that your typedef is of minimal relevance to the comparator itself (though the comparator as a function pointer should match that typedef). It is the type that a comparator should have, but you can't use that typedef name when writing the function. You could use the typedef in the implementation of the sort function and in its declaration.
I observed in a couple of places that returning the difference of two signed int values as the result of the comparator leads to undefined behaviour.
In a comment to a now deleted answer, AR89 asked:
Instead of the subtraction an if statement would be safer?
Yes. Consider what happens if you have 16-bit int values and you compare -30,000 and +30,000; you've got signed overflow, and you might get a positive value back from your comparator, even though the first value is less than the second. Analogous situations can occur with 32-bit or 64-bit integers. They're relatively unlikely; if you know that your values are well within range, you'd be OK. But for general purpose code, you should do the piecewise comparison:
if (i < k)
return -1;
else if (i > k)
return +1;
else
return 0;
as it works regardless of the values of i and k. Also note that the if comparison works reliably for unsigned int types too, whereas subtraction really doesn't work then (the result is always zero or positive).