How do you specify which fields to sort by when sorting an array.

[brentheigold]

Say for example I had an array that I created by reading in a file, so:

      while ( <INPUT_FILE>)
      {
        my ($name, $id, $address, $phone) = split(',');
        push(@outputRef, $name, $id, $address, $phone);
      }

Then if I wanted to do an ascending sort on the @outputRef array ONLY BY name and phone number, how would I do that? I would really appreciate help on this, if you know how to do this then thanks a lot in advance. Brent.

[chromatic]

There are several examples given in the documentation for sort. The trick is specifying which fields of $a and $b to compare:

my @output;
while (<INPUT_FILE>)
{
    push @output, [ split(',', $_, 4) ];
}
my @sorted = sort {
    $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]
    ||
    $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
} @output;

I took the liberty of fixing the name of @outputRef (which is not a reference) and pushing each row as an anonymous array. I also use numeric comparisons on the phone numbers.

[tadman]

I'm not sure why chromatic seemed to miss the boat on this one. Although I might be wrong, it would seem that the linefeed ("\n") is being left on the fourth element of the array. Maybe a rushed posting. Here's a more compacted version:

my @output = sort { $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]
                 || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] }
             map { chomp; [ split(',', $_, 4) ] }
             <INPUT_FILE>;

Remember that with this kind of structure the data flows from the bottom up. From the file, through the map which makes the proper array-of-arrays (AoA), and in to the sort routine which re-orders it before storing the result in @output.

As a note, though, comparing phone numbers numerically is pretty lacking. If one has a dot and the other a dash, your sort is going to be ruined. Here's a more robust version that only sorts the numerical component of the phone number, ignoring brackets, dashes and the like:

sub phone_value
{
     my ($v) = @_;
     $v =~ tr/^0-9//d;
     return $v;
}

my @output = sort { $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]
                 || phone_value($a->[3]) <=> phone_value($b->[3]) }
             map { chomp; [ split(',', $_, 4) ] }
             <INPUT_FILE>;