Answer: How do I do a complex sort on an array? contributed by vroom Basically what you do is make an array of references to arrays with two elements. The first element is your element in your original array, the second element is the value you compute to sort on. Note we only do this once not every time we do a comparison in the sort. This will result in a huge time savings in sorting a large array. Next we sort on this computed value. Then we return an array containing only the original elements. @sortedarray= map{$_->[0]} # return an array that only contains the original value +s (now sorted) # sort on $computedsortval # you use only use one of these sort lines sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]} # this one for numerical sorting sort{$a->[1] cmp $b->[1]} # this one for textual sorting #this map block computes the value you're going to sort on #and places it in $computedsortval map{ #calculate $computedsortval [$_,$computedsortval]; } @origarray; [download]

Answer: How do I do a complex sort on an array? contributed by merlyn And this is commonly called the Schwartzian Transform, named after me, but not by me.

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