Re: Lookup closest hash key

Nah, the whole point of a hash is that it obviates coding the B-tree yourself


my %distances = (
    452 => 'London',
    678 => 'Paris',
    890 => 'Rome',
);

print nearest( 672, \%distances ) . "\n";

sub nearest{
    my ( $dist, $href ) = @_;
    my ( $answer ) = ( sort { abs( $a - $dist ) <=> abs( $b - $dist ) 
+} keys %$href );
    return $href -> { $answer };
}
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update: you could use the orcish manoeuvre to minimise sort iterations but something as simple as abs( x - y ) seems too cheap to be worth it.

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