Sorting is a common operation when working with data. While sorting elements in C++ is straightforward using the default comparison operators, there are cases where you may need to sort objects based on custom criteria. In this blog post, we will explore how to perform custom sorting using literals in C++.

Literals in C++

In C++, a literal is a representation of a fixed value in the source code. Common literals include integers, floating-point numbers, characters, and strings. However, C++ allows us to create custom literals to represent values of our own types.

Custom Sorting using Literals

To perform custom sorting using literals, we need to define our custom type and provide a way to compare two objects of that type. We can achieve this by overloading the comparison operators (<, >, <=, >=, ==, !=) or by providing a custom comparison function.

Let’s suppose we have a custom Person class with attributes like name, age, and salary. We can define a custom literal to compare Person objects based on their age.

class Person {
public:
  std::string name;
  int age;
  double salary;
};

bool operator<(const Person& p1, const Person& p2) {
  return p1.age < p2.age;
}

In the above example, we have defined the less-than (<) operator overload for the Person class. This allows us to compare Person objects based on their age.

Now, we can sort a collection of Person objects using the custom literal for age:

std::vector<Person> people = {...}; // assume we have a vector of Person objects
std::sort(people.begin(), people.end());

By passing the people.begin() and people.end() iterators to the std::sort algorithm, it will sort the people vector based on the custom literal defined for the Person class.

Conclusion

Custom sorting using literals in C++ allows us to sort objects based on custom criteria. By defining a custom literal and overloading the necessary comparison operators or providing a custom comparison function, we can perform tailored sorting operations. This flexibility empowers C++ developers to handle sorting requirements specific to their applications.

#C++ #sorting