Why is swap called by std::sort only if my container has more than 32 elements?

Question

Hello I have a simple question:

class A 
{
public:
    A(int);
    A(const A&);
    A& operator=(const A&);
    ~A();
private:
    int* ptr_;

    friend bool operator<(const A&, const A&);
    friend void swap(A&, A&);
};

A::A(int x) : 
    ptr_(new int(x))
{}

A::A(const A& rhs) :
    ptr_(rhs.ptr_ ? new int(*rhs.ptr_) : nullptr)
{}

A& A::operator = (const A & rhs)
{
    int* tmp = rhs.ptr_ ? new int(*rhs.ptr_) : nullptr;
    delete ptr_;
    ptr_ = tmp;

    return *this;
}

A::~A()
{
    delete ptr_;
}

bool operator<(const A& lhs, const A& rhs)
{
    cout << "operator<(const A&, const A&)" << endl;
    return *lhs.ptr_ < *rhs.ptr_;
}

void swap(A& lhs, A& rhs)
{
    cout << "swap(A&, A&)" << endl;
    using std::swap;
    swap(lhs.ptr_, rhs.ptr_);
}

int main()
{

    std::vector<A> v{ 33,32,31,30,29,28,27,26,25,24,23,22, 21,20,19,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5, 4,3,2,1 };
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end());

}

With more than 32 elements, the sort calls swap. With 32 elements or less, the elements are still sorted but swap is not called.

• I am using MSVC++ 2019 on x64.
• When is swap called and when is it not and why? Thank you!
• I didn't use swap in copy-assignment only to distinguish between the call to it from sort from the copy-assignment operator.

Answer 1

Microsoft std::sort implementation looks like this:

const int ISORT_MAX = 32;  // maximum size for insertion sort

template<class RanIt, class Diff, class Pr>
void Sort(RanIt First, RanIt Last, Diff Ideal, Pr Pred)
{
    Diff Count;
    for (; ISORT_MAX < (Count = Last - First) && 0 < Ideal; )
    {   // divide and conquer by quicksort
        pair<RanIt, RanIt> Mid = Unguarded_partition(First, Last, Pred);

        // ...
    }

    if (ISORT_MAX < Count)
    {   // heap sort if too many divisions
        Make_heap(First, Last, Pred);
        Sort_heap(First, Last, Pred);
    }
    else if (1 < Count)
        Insertion_sort(First, Last, Pred);  // small
}

When the range to be sorted has 32 elements or less, Sort uses insertion sort. Insertion sort doesn't use swap in its implementation. Otherwise, divide-and-conquer quick sort is used. In the implementation it calls iter_swap (inside Unguarded_partition), which in turn calls swap:

template<class FwdIt1, class FwdIt2>
void iter_swap(FwdIt1 Left, FwdIt2 Right)
{   // swap *Left and *Right
    swap(*Left, *Right);
}

All these are implementation details. They vary from one standard library implementation to another.