Closed
Description
Update, May 18 2023: The current proposed API is #60091 (comment)
In #57433 we added the slices package to the standard library. In the discussion of that proposal, we decided to delay adding the sorting and comparison functions that exist in golang.org/x/exp/slices, pending a decision on the constraints package.
In #59488 we proposed adding a new cmp package, which will define cmp.Ordered as a constraint matching all ordered types.
This proposal is to add the sorting functions to the slices package in the standard library, assuming that #59488 is adopted. If #59488 is declined, then this proposal should be declined.
The proposed new API (already in golang.org/x/exp/slices) is:
// Compare compares the elements of s1 and s2.
// The elements are compared sequentially, starting at index 0,
// until one element is not equal to the other.
// The result of comparing the first non-matching elements is returned.
// If both slices are equal until one of them ends, the shorter slice is
// considered less than the longer one.
// The result is 0 if s1 == s2, -1 if s1 < s2, and +1 if s1 > s2.
// Comparisons involving floating point NaNs are ignored.
func Compare[E cmp.Ordered](s1, s2 []E) int
// CompareFunc is like Compare but uses a comparison function
// on each pair of elements. The elements are compared in increasing
// index order, and the comparisons stop after the first time cmp
// returns non-zero.
// The result is the first non-zero result of cmp; if cmp always
// returns 0 the result is 0 if len(s1) == len(s2), -1 if len(s1) < len(s2),
// and +1 if len(s1) > len(s2).
func CompareFunc[E1, E2 any](s1 []E1, s2 []E2, cmp func(E1, E2) int) int
// Sort sorts a slice of any ordered type in ascending order.
// Sort may fail to sort correctly when sorting slices of floating-point
// numbers containing Not-a-number (NaN) values.
// Use slices.SortFunc with an appropriate comparison function if the input may contain NaNs.
func Sort[E cmp.Ordered](x []E)
// SortFunc sorts the slice x in ascending order as determined by the less function.
// This sort is not guaranteed to be stable.
//
// SortFunc requires that less is a strict weak ordering.
// See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_ordering#Strict_weak_orderings.
func SortFunc[E any](x []E, less func(a, b E) bool)
// SortStableFunc sorts the slice x while keeping the original order of equal
// elements, using less to compare elements.
func SortStableFunc[E any](x []E, less func(a, b E) bool)
// IsSorted reports whether x is sorted in ascending order.
func IsSorted[E cmp.Ordered](x []E) bool
// IsSortedFunc reports whether x is sorted in ascending order, with less as the
// comparison function.
func IsSortedFunc[E any](x []E, less func(a, b E) bool) bool
// BinarySearch searches for target in a sorted slice and returns the position
// where target is found, or the position where target would appear in the
// sort order; it also returns a bool saying whether the target is really found
// in the slice. The slice must be sorted in increasing order.
func BinarySearch[E cmp.Ordered](x []E, target E) (int, bool)
// BinarySearchFunc works like BinarySearch, but uses a custom comparison
// function. The slice must be sorted in increasing order, where "increasing"
// is defined by cmp. cmp should return 0 if the slice element matches
// the target, a negative number if the slice element precedes the target,
// or a positive number if the slice element follows the target.
// cmp must implement the same ordering as the slice, such that if
// cmp(a, t) < 0 and cmp(b, t) >= 0, then a must precede b in the slice.
func BinarySearchFunc[E, T any](x []E, target T, cmp func(E, T) int) (int, bool)