n type using a comparison format that encodes the types of the data elements.&nbsp; The comparison format is a string containing an Objective C type encoding.</font>

<p><font face="Times">An object implementing this protocol compares two arrays of Objective C scalar values: signed and unsigned short and long integers, signed and unsigned bytes (characters), and single- and double-precision floating-point numbers.&nbsp; Based on the comparison format, an object implementing this protocol iteratively compare