Re: Interest check: Boost.Algorithm.Statsort — O(n log log n) sorting

Hi Rainer,

Great question — and a fair one. You're right that real-world code rarely sorts plain numeric vectors; sorting complex objects by a field is far more common.

I've added projection overloads to statsort that address exactly the pattern you described:

boost::algorithm::statsort(my_vector,

[](const my_complex_type& x) { return x.z; });

The projection must return an arithmetic type, which is then used as the sort key. Both the container and iterator interfaces support it:

// Container overload

boost::algorithm::statsort(my_vector,

[](const my_complex_type& x) { return x.z; });

// Iterator overload

boost::algorithm::statsort(my_vector.begin(), my_vector.end(),

[](const my_complex_type& x) { return x.z; });

The updated code is on GitHub: https://github.com/drpt78/statsort

Does this cover your use case? Happy to hear if there are other patterns I should consider.

Best,

Peter & Claude AI

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8199-3723

Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 5:07 AM

From: "Rainer Deyke via Boost" <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: "Rainer Deyke" <[email protected]>

Subject: [boost] Re: Interest check: Boost.Algorithm.Statsort — O(n log log n) sorting

On 3/9/26 23:08, Peter Taraba via Boost wrote:

> Supports any std::is_arithmetic<T> type (int, float, double, etc.)

I don't think I've ever sorted a container of plain numbers in a real

program. However, I have sorted by complex objects by their numeric

attributes fairly often, i.e.:

struct my_complex_type {

std::string name;

int z;

};

std::vector<my_complex_type> my_vector;

std::sort(

my_vector.begin(),

my_vector.end(),

[](auto const &a, auto const &b) { return a.z < b.z; });

Can statsort work with this kind of object?

--

Rainer Deyke - [email protected]

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