BL> I want to read a line out of FILES, put it in a pointer array, sort
BL> the line using the first 4 characters, and then write the sorted array
BL> to the new file.

Time for another use of char **.  :-)  There is an example program,
xysort.c in OZPD, which does exactly what you are doing.

BL> This is the qsort() function... strcmp() straight out of the book.

BL> int sort_function(const void *a, const void *b)
BL> {
BL> return(strcmp((char *)a,(char *)b));
BL> }

If you had a char list[500][50]; and were trying to sort it, then the above
method would work.  You're not, you're trying to sort char *list[500]. To
do that, you need:

int sort_function(const void *a, const void *b)
{
   return(strcmp(*(char **)a, *(char **)b));
}


Now, YOU tell ME why you used char ** instead of char * !!!  It's perfectly
fine to do, it's just you've answered your own question.

BL> My problem is with qsort(). It gets totally stuffed up with the long
BL> and variable-length lines. How the bloody hell can I make it sort
BL> on just the first few characters in each line? When I try to rewrite

I think you asked the wrong question.  The answer to that question is use
strncmp() and specify 2, 3, 4 or whatever as the length to look at.

BL> sort_function() it won't let me truncate the strings because it's
BL> passing void pointers!

You can truncate strings simply by going *(p + 2) = '\0'.  I don't think
you want to truncate strings though.  BFN.  Paul. 
@EOT:

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