Re: Sort an array which contains date formatted elements

[cdarke]

Alternatively use a custom sort. It is a little more complicated than normal because of the date format. For example:

use strict;

my @files = qw (webadmin_jul_10_2007.log
webadmin_jul_11_2007.log
webadmin_jul_12_2007.log
webadmin_jul_13_2007.log
webadmin_jul_14_2007.log
webadmin_jul_7_2007.log
webadmin_jul_8_2007.log
webadmin_jul_9_2007.log);

sub bydate {
   # Extract non-numeric and date 
   # Assumes text after date is the same
   my ($afront, $aday, $ayear) = $a =~ /^([[:alpha:]_]+)(\d+)_(\d+)/;
   my ($bfront, $bday, $byear) = $b =~ /^([[:alpha:]_]+)(\d+)_(\d+)/;
   my $retn = ($afront cmp $bfront);

   $retn = ($ayear <=> $byear) if $retn == 0;
   $retn = ($aday  <=> $bday)  if $retn == 0;
   
   return $retn
}

my @sorted = sort bydate @files;
local $" = "\n";
print "@sorted\n";