sorting array of structures using bubble sort - how to speed up exchange of struct members

Question

I have a structure consisting of two elements char *word and int number. When I want to sort them using bubble sort, I have to write exchange parts for both of them:

int i,j,tmp;
    char * temp;
    for(i=0; i<max;i++)
    {
        for(j=0;j<max-i;j++)
        {
            if(strcmp(array[j].word,array[j+1].word)>0)
            {
                temp=array[j].word;
                array[j].word=array[j+1].word;
                array[j+1].word=temp;
                tmp=array[j].number;
                array[j].number=array[j+1].number;
                array[j+1].number=tmp;

            }
        }
    }

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EDIT My struct declaration

typedef struct{
    char *word;
    int number;
}
words;
words *array=NULL;

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What if I had n elements in the array ? That would be very time consuming to exchange everything. Is there any way to omit this?

OF COURSE except for other sorting algorithms, which I don't want to use (like qsort).

Answer 1

If your concern is with the performance in the swapping process, you should consider and array of pointers of type the struct you are using:

struct your_stuct *arr[MAX];

If you set correctly this array, the swap will change only the memory addresses rather than the struct contents and it could run faster:

Within your inner loop you should use:

struct your_struct *temp;
temp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[i+1];
arr[i+1] = temp;

Is this what you mean in your question?