Re^2: Sorting Puzzle (just sort)

[imp]

in reply to Re: Sorting Puzzle (just sort)
in thread Sorting Puzzle

$a <=> $b already forces $a and $b to be interpretted as numbers, always.

It doesn't appear to with perl 5.8.2:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $d1 = '2007030110300020070301133000';
my $d2 = '2007030110300020070301143000';

printf "plain = %d\n", ($d1 <=> $d2);
{
    use bigint;
    printf "bigint = %d\n", ($d1 <=> $d2);
}
{
    use bigint;
    printf "bigint-0 = %d\n", (($d1 -0)<=> ($d2-0));
}

Output:

plain = 0
bigint = 0
bigint-0 = -1

[tye]

That doesn't show $d1 and $d2 being compared as not numbers and so doesn't contradict my point. I guess the other points are about getting bigint to magically turn numeric expressions into objects. I'm not a fan of such subtle magic and so didn't recommend the use of bigint.pm and see no real value for it here anyway. But thanks for indirectly clarifying those points.