The condition preceding 'return 1;' makes my head hurt. At this point,
we know that u and v have the same sign; if they are negative, they
compare opposite to how their absolute values compare (which
mpihelp_cmp found for us), otherwise cmp itself is the
answer. Negating cmp is ok since mpihelp_cmp returns {-1,0,1};
-INT_MIN==INT_MIN won't bite us.