http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=173658


in reply to perl puzzle - cartoon couple registry (beginner, semi-golf)

All right, I'll jump in. I'm not exactly a newbie, but I'm also not an 'expert' (fill in your own opinion on what an 'expert' is).

So without further ado, this is what I ended up with:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w %couples = ( Fred=>"Wilma", Barney=>"Betty", George=>"Jane", Homer=>"Marge", Peter=>"Lois" ); print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n" for (sort keys %couples);


Looking at just the important line, I started with:
foreach $key (sort keys %couples) {print "$key is married to $couples{ +$key}\n"};
Hmm, exactly 80 characters. But wait, I can use the default variable ('$_') rather than creating my own, so I'm now down to 71 characters.
foreach (sort keys %couples) {print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n"} +;
Ahh, there's more. 'foreach' can be written as 'for' taking me done to 67 characters:
for (sort keys %couples) {print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n"};
Not quite - I can get rid of those pesky brackets by reversing the 'for' and 'print' statements, reducing it down to 65 characters:
print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n" for (sort keys %couples);

And that's as far as I've gotten. I've noticed that my solution got more 'perlish' (albeit not much) as I went along, so I was hoping that some of our more experienced monks would contribute as well - and notes as to how you got there are most welcome. Most Perl golf I see is from a realm I'm not familiar with, so a map to that wonderful place would be appreciated greatly.

Pat

P.S. Viewng my post in VIM with syntax checking on leads to some strange colored text...