CUFP Lady_Aleena <p>Some of you may know that I sort almost everything I use. One day I came upon an idea to put all the different ways I sort things into a subroutine. Those who know me know that I like to randomize things too, so I added a random sort into the mix if a sort type is not chosen.</p> <code> sub short_sorts { my ($a,$b,$type) = @_; # Legend: # cs = case sensitive # ci = case insensitive # a = ascending # d = descending # r = reverse (right to left) # n = numbers # l = length of value # Note: # If you put $b from the main script into $a in this subroutine and use descending, # you will actually get the list returned in ascending order. my %sorts = ( 'cs-a' => sub { $_[0] cmp $_[1] }, 'cs-a-r' => sub { reverse($_[0]) cmp reverse($_[1]) }, 'cs-d' => sub { $_[1] cmp $_[0] }, 'cs-d-r' => sub { reverse($_[1]) cmp reverse($_[0]) }, 'ci-a' => sub { uc $_[0] cmp uc $_[1] }, 'ci-a-r' => sub { uc reverse($_[0]) cmp uc reverse($_[1]) }, 'ci-d' => sub { uc $_[1] cmp uc $_[0] }, 'ci-d-r' => sub { uc reverse($_[1]) cmp uc reverse($_[0]) }, 'n-a' => sub { $_[0] <=> $_[1] }, 'n-d' => sub { $_[1] <=> $_[0] }, 'l-a' => sub { length($_[0]) <=> length($_[1]) }, 'l-d' => sub { length($_[1]) <=> length($_[0]) }, ); return $sorts{$type}->($a,$b) if $type; my $random_sort = (keys %sorts)[rand (keys %sorts)]; return $sorts{$random_sort}->($a,$b) if !$type; } </code> <p>It is used as follows.</p> <code> my @unsorted_array = qw(red yellow green cyan blue magenta); my @sorted_array = sort { short_sorts($a,$b,'ci-d-r") } @unsorted_array; print "$_\n" for @sorted_array; </code> <p>That will return the list case insensitively sorted in descending order with the values read in reverse (right to left).</p> <code> yellow green cyan blue red magenta </code> <p>This is just another snippet from my small collection of odd subroutines floating about my hard drive. There are two things: I am not sure that I like the hyphens, and can this be expanded further?</p> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-161890"> <div><strong><em>Have a cookie and a very nice day!</em></strong></div> <div><em>Lady Aleena</em></div> </div></div>