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Added new footnote about list.sort() stability. Repaired footnote about

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using sort() with comparison functions (it made reference to the non-
existent "builtin-in function sort()").

BTW, I changed list.sort's docstring to contain the word "stable" -- the
easiest way to tell whether a particular Python version's sort *is* stable
is to look for "stable" in the docstring.  I'm not sure whether to
advertise this <wink>.
This commit is contained in:
Tim Peters 2002-08-01 03:10:45 +00:00
parent f47630ff54
commit 74824584ef
1 changed files with 12 additions and 4 deletions
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16
Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex
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@ -901,7 +901,7 @@ The following operations are defined on mutable sequence types (where
\lineiii{\var{s}.reverse()}
{reverses the items of \var{s} in place}{(6)}
\lineiii{\var{s}.sort(\optional{\var{cmpfunc}})}
{sort the items of \var{s} in place}{(6), (7)}
{sort the items of \var{s} in place}{(6), (7), (8)}
\end{tableiii}
\indexiv{operations on}{mutable}{sequence}{types}
\indexiii{operations on}{sequence}{types}
@ -947,10 +947,18 @@ Notes:
the first argument is considered smaller than, equal to, or larger
than the second argument. Note that this slows the sorting process
down considerably; e.g. to sort a list in reverse order it is much
faster to use calls to the methods \method{sort()} and
\method{reverse()} than to use the built-in function
\function{sort()} with a comparison function that reverses the
faster to call method \method{sort()} followed by
\method{reverse()} than to use method
\method{sort()} with a comparison function that reverses the
ordering of the elements.
\item[(8)] Whether the \method{sort()} method is stable is not defined by
the language (a sort is stable if it guarantees not to change the
relative order of elements that compare equal). In the C
implementation of Python, sorts were stable only by accident through
Python 2.2. The C implementation of Python 2.3 introduced a stable
\method{sort()} method, but code that intends to be portable across
implementations and versions must not rely on stability.
\end{description}