Inspirationally shameless, and a great demonstration of the
power of 'and' versus '&&', something that I hadn't
fully understood. Until now. I have to say, at first it
looks like a drop-in alternative to the presumably
scary C-style double-ampersands (as in, an artifact of
the use English movement), but when you get right down
to it, it binds much more loosely, enhancing its utility
vastly.
In the spirit of shameless borrowing, switching to 'pop' and using 'and' nets the following:
sub f{for($t=pop;$_=(0,l,r)[$$t{d}cmp$_[0]]and$t=$$t{$_};){}$t}
But this is really just converging on the same thing:
sub f{for($t=pop;$_=$$t{d}cmp$_[0]and$t=$$t{$_>0?l:r};){}$t}
Which is the same length, and functionally the same due
to heavy cross-pollination.
Of course, if the spec had indicated that the two branches
were labelled '-1' and '1' instead of 'r' and 'l', that
would certainly simplify things a whole lot. Or at least
it would save 6 precious characters:
sub f{for($t=pop;$_=$$t{d}cmp$_[0]and$t=$$t{$_};){}$t}
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A tip. Whenever possible go for the one-line looping
constructs. The following two are equivalent logically:
for(A;B;C){}
A;C while B;
however the second has 3 characters you may be able to
drop. So use it. Even if it means using commas etc in
C to get it to work, use it. (I am able to drop the 2
spaces.) A technicality, to be sure, but a significant
one.
Also while the binding of and can make it better than &&,
if you see it used that way, look for a way to move
things around to get the && in somewhere and save a
character. Watch:
sub f {
$t=pop;$t=$$t{$c>0?l:r}while$c=$t&&$$t{d}cmp$_[0];$t
}
Not something you would write from scratch, but there you
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