Rationale for Ada 2005

John Barnes

8.6 Sorting

The final facilities in the container library are generic procedures for array sorting. There are two versions, one for unconstrained arrays and one for constrained arrays. Their specifications are

generic
   type Index_Type is (<>);
   type Element_Type is private;
   type Array_Type is array (Index_Type range <>) of Element_Type;
   with function "<" (Left, Right: Element_Type) return Boolean is <>;
procedure Ada.Containers.Generic_Array_Sort(Container: in out Array_Type);
pragma Pure(Ada.Containers.Generic_Array_Sort);

and

generic
   type Index_Type is (<>);
   type Element_Type is private;
   type Array_Type is array (Index_Type) of Element_Type;
   with function "<" (Left, Right: Element_Type) return Boolean is <>;
procedure Ada.Containers.Generic_Constrained_Array_Sort(Container: in out Array_Type);
pragma Pure(Ada.Containers.Generic_Constrained_Array_Sort);

These do the obvious thing. They sort the array Container into order as defined by the generic parameter "<". The emphasis is on speed.