Best or most efficient way to sort parallel arrays using subroutines in C?

Question

Ok so the user enter a name and an age. The output needs printed in ascending order. I've done bubble sort but I do not know how to keep track of the ages with the names. Is one sort method better or easy than another one?

Answer 1

Instead of using a bunch of arrays, you can just put everything you need into a struct, make an array of structs. For example:

struct user {
    char name[100];
    int age;
};

struct user user_array[100];

Or, if you don't want to change the whole code, just make a swap function somwhere, and in your sorting algorithm, instead of swapping elements directly, just call a swap function. For example, assume that you have

char name[100][100];
int age[100];

The swap function will look like

void swap_users(int a, int b, char ** name, int * age)
{
    int age_tmp;
    char *name_tmp;
    age_tmp  = age [a]; age [a] = age [b]; age [b] = age_tmp;
    name_tmp = name[a]; name[a] = name[b]; name[b] = name_tmp;
}

And your sorting algorithm will look like:

void some_sorting_algorithm()
{
    // do something ...
    // do something ...
    // maybe some loop? ...
        swap_users(x, y, name, age);
    // continue the loop or doing something
}

PS: hope I understood your question correctly.