Can a program be written that can sort a set of words alphabetically?

The idea sounds pretty cool and this is what I have so far.

function sorted=sortWords(array)
sorted={};
while ~isempty(array)
    [m,pos]=findSmaller(array);
    array(pos)=[];
    sorted=[sort m];
end
function [m,pos]=findSmallest(array)
m=%Something here
pos=1;
for i=2:length(array)
    if isLessWord(%Something here),m
        m=%something here
        pos=1;
    end
end
function less=isLessWord(wordA,wordB)
worda=lower(wordA);
wordb=lower(wordB);
if worda(1)<wordb(1) 
    less=true;
%This would be the terminating statement for a recursive function but I'm not the best at those
%so I may cut it out and do it the hard way.
end

[Geoff Hayes]

Yes, Patrick, you can write a program to sort a set of words. You may want to clearly outline the algorithm that you are going to implement. For example, you could sort on the first character of each word, and then break that sorted set into subsets where the word in each subset starts with the same character. Then recursively call your sorting algorithm on each subset (less the initial character).

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You have

sorted=[sort m];

you have not defined a variable named "sort", so you are calling the MATLAB routine named sort() there, and passing it no arguments, as if you had written

sorted=[sort() m];

The MATLAB routine named "sort" requires an input argument, so that line is going to generate an error.

You appear to be calling upon a routine named findSmaller(), but you do not define a routine by that name: you define a routine named findSmallest

Answer 2

[Thorsten]

Is this homework? Otherwise just use sort

 words = {'a' 'z' 'foo' 'bar' 'unsorted' 'help'}
 sort(words)