Omnimaga

Calculator Community => TI Calculators => Lua => Topic started by: pianoman on July 15, 2011, 01:01:23 pm

Title: Sorting tables
Post by: pianoman on July 15, 2011, 01:01:23 pm

Hi again!
Just wondering, how do you use the sort feature in Lua for tables?
Thank you very much!

Title: Re: Sorting tables
Post by: Munchor on July 15, 2011, 01:05:53 pm

Code: [Select]

> mytable = {"omnimaga", "pianoman", "ephan"}
> -- When order alphabetically, it should be "ephan", "omnimaga", "pianoman"
> table.sort(mytable)
> = a[1]
ephan
> = a[2]
omnimaga
> = a[3]
pianoman

table.sort() sorts a table of strings alphabetically or numerically, if it is table of integers:

Code: [Select]

> myinttable = {4,2,1,3}
> table.sort(myinttable)
> return  myinttable[1]
1
> return  myinttable[2]
2
> return  myinttable[3]
3
> return  myinttable[4]
4

More information can be found here (http://lua-users.org/wiki/TableLibraryTutorial).

Title: Re: Sorting tables
Post by: pianoman on July 15, 2011, 01:08:27 pm

Interesting... could be very useful.
Thanks, ephan!

Title: Re: Sorting tables
Post by: Jim Bauwens on July 15, 2011, 01:12:18 pm

This is a direct quote from http://lua-users.org/wiki/TableLibraryTutorial , which I describes the usage very good:

Quote

table.sort(table [, comp])

Sort the elements of a table in-place (i.e. alter the table).

Code: (Lua) [Select]

> t = { 3,2,5,1,4 }
> table.sort(t)
> = table.concat(t, ", ")  -- display sorted values
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

If the table has a specified size only the range specified is sorted, e.g.,

Code: (Lua) [Select]

> t = { 3,2,5,1,4; n=3 }   -- construct a table with user size of 3
> table.sort(t)            -- sort will be limited by user size
> = table.concat(t, ", ")  -- only specified size is concatenated as well

2, 3, 5

A comparison function can be provided to customise the element sorting. The comparison function must return a boolean value specifying whether the first argument should be before the second argument in the sequence. The default behaviour is for the < comparison to be made. For example, the following behaves the same as no function being supplied:

Code: (Lua) [Select]

> t = { 3,2,5,1,4 }
> table.sort(t, function(a,b) return a<b end)
> = table.concat(t, ", ")
1, 2, 3, 4, 5        We can see if we reverse the comparison the sequence order is reversed.

Code: (Lua) [Select]

> table.sort(t, function(a,b) return a>b end)
> = table.concat(t, ", ")
5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Edit: Ephan's post is also very informative

Title: Re: Sorting tables
Post by: Munchor on July 15, 2011, 01:14:06 pm

Quote from: pianoman on July 15, 2011, 01:08:27 pm

Interesting... could be very useful.
Thanks, ephan!

The typical example is the classic program when the user will enter N numbers and you have to sort them and print them out. I just coded this:

Code: [Select]

n = io.read()
n = tonumber(n)

f = {}

for i=1,n do
    a = io.read()
    table.insert(f, a)
end

table.sort(f)
print("")

for i=1,n do
    print(f[i])
end

This gets a variable N as input from the user, then it reads N numbers. After this, it prints them ordered.