I tend to prefer to compute strings that can be sorted using the "default" sort even for problems as complex as this:
chomp( my @strs= <DATA> );
my @sorts= map {
if( ! /^(.*)(\d\d)(.*)_(\Q$str1\E|\Q$str2\E)$/ ) {
"3".$_; # Non-matching lines come last
} else {
( $4 eq $str1 ? "1" : "2" ) # Sort on _$str[12] first
. sprintf("%02d",99-$2) # Next on digits (reverse order)
. $1 . $3; # Lastly sort on middle strings
}
} @strs;
return @strs[ sort { $sorts[$a] cmp $sorts[$b] } 0..$#sorts ];
This may be significantly faster than writing a complex "compare" routine to pass to
sort if you have a lot of items to sort.
-
tye
(but my friends call me "Tye")
