Only inefficiently. If you don't tell Perl to build a hash
lookup, you will have to repeatedly scan the array. But
you can eliminate the Schwartzian sort:
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Indent = 1;
my @vals = qw( 1 2 3 1 3 3 3 43 bob 2 bob 6 2 );
my %freqs;
$freqs{$_}++ foreach @vals;
my @sorted = sort {
$freqs{$b} <=> $freqs{$a} or $a cmp $b
} keys %freqs;
print Data::Dumper->Dump([\@sorted], ['*sorted']);
Remember that Schwarzian sorts are good when the sort
step involves a lot of work. Hash lookups are not that
much work. :-)
Incidentally note that way I dump. I had looked that up a
long time ago, but I want to start trying to use that for
brief one-offs. I think it is rather nice to keep my
names intact like that...
