Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Nov 20 10:40, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> Hi Christian,
>>
>> This puzzles me:
>>
>> On Nov 17 21:25, Christian Franke wrote:
>>> @@ -610,7 +607,7 @@ get_by_id_table (by_id_entry * &table, fhandler_dev_disk::dev_disk_location loc)
>>>     if (!table)
>>>       return (errno_set ? -1 : 0);
>>>   
>>> -  /* Sort by name and remove duplicates. */
>>> +  /* Sort by name and mark duplicates. */
>>>     qsort (table, table_size, sizeof (*table), by_id_compare_name);
>>>     for (unsigned i = 0; i < table_size; i++)
>> by_id_compare_name only compars the actual names...
>>
>>>       {
>>> @@ -619,12 +616,13 @@ get_by_id_table (by_id_entry * &table, fhandler_dev_disk::dev_disk_location loc)
>>>   	j++;
>>>         if (j == i + 1)
>>>   	continue;
>>> -      /* Duplicate(s) found, remove all entries with this name. */
>>> -      debug_printf ("removing duplicates %d-%d: '%s'", i, j - 1, table[i].name);
>>> -      if (j < table_size)
>>> -	memmove (table + i, table + j, (table_size - j) * sizeof (*table));
>>> -      table_size -= j - i;
>>> -      i--;
>>> +      /* Duplicate(s) found, append "#N" to all entries.  This never
>> ...but the names are identical.  So the *order* within the identically
>> named entries depends on qsort's reshuffling of table
>> entries.  Which in turn depends on outside factors like number of table
>> entries and the ultimate position of the identical entries within the
>> ordered table.
>>
>> Having said that, I don't see how adding ordinals to the names can be
>> unambiguous.  AFAICS, the numbers may change by just adding another
>> disk (USB Stick) to the system...
> Oops, that's not exactly what I was trying to say, sorry.
>
> The problem is not adding ordinals to the name, AFAICS, the problem is
> that the sorting function by_id_compare_name is not up to the task to
> make sure the order is unambiguous within the entries of identical name.

That's correct, thanks for catching. qsort is not a stable sort. 
Changing drives outside the duplicate range may also change the order 
within the range. Could be fixed by a lexicographic compare of {name, 
drive, part}.

I'll provide a new patch soon. For now, I attached the unrelated but 
important part of the dropped patch.

Christian