27.2.09

Roflcopter

So, I'm implementing a merge sort in C for my OS class. The spin is that it has to use threads, specifically the pthreads library. It also has to be able to be limited in the number of threads it can use. I've gotten the first part done, figuring out how to do merge sort with pointers. I had made a text file to be sorted the other day, and just threw a bunch of stuff in there that came to mind: excerpts include "boy", "girl", "ping", "stuff" and "romani". Pretty stream of conscious. One of the things in there was "tux!"

When I went to test the program for the first time, I figured I should take a quick look at the text file. I switched "tux!" to "tux" just in case some weird error happened. My program happily sorted the file. So then I went and switched it back. No problem. Then I got curious. What happens if I give it "tux" and "tux!"? It was ordered just like that. So that got me thinking, "Wow, I wonder what the ASCII ordering for punctuation marks is?" So I typed in "tux," "tux." and "tux?" as well. When ordered, that small section gave me my poem for today's Gedichte des Donnerstags.


tux
tux!
tux,
tux.
tux?
ubuntu