sort error with ranges

[John W. Eaton]

On  8-Feb-2008, David Bateman wrote:

| John W. Eaton wrote:
| > Also, shouldn't the sortmode enum be inside the octave_sort class?
| >   
| Yes, I remember trying that then stop due to an issue I can't remember.
| Why not try placing it the octave_sort class as this would be better for
| the namespace separation.

OK, I see the problem now.  You have to write something like

  octave_value
  sort (octave_idx_type dim = 0,
	octave_sort<T>::mode mode = octave_sort<T>::UNDEFINED) const;

but it's not always clear what T should be.

If we only have ascending and descending sorts, then what about just
using

  octave_value
  sort (octave_idx_type dim = 0, bool ascending = true) const;

instead?  I know that the calls will then be like

  foo = sort (dim, true);

and that is not quite as readable as

  foo = sort (dim, ascending);

but it does avoid the namespace problem.  Or, we could define a new
type just for the mode, something like

  struct
  octave_sortmode
  {
    enum
      {
	ascending,
	descending
      };
  };

Then we could write

  octave_value
  sort (octave_idx_type dim = 0, int mode = octave_sortmode::ascending) const;


I'll eliminate the UNDEFINED mode next, but wait on deciding what to
do about the enum.

jwe