Re^5: Pearls (not really) of Perl programming


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Re^5: Pearls (not really) of Perl programming

by htoug (Deacon)

on Dec 01, 2004 at 18:49 UTC ( [id://411533]=note: print w/replies, xml )

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in reply to Re^4: Pearls (not really) of Perl programming
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The comparison function for sort must not just return 'true' and 'false'.
It must return '-1', '0' and '+1' for comparing 'Less Than', 'Equal To' and 'Greater Than', just like the two standard comparison operators 'cmp' and '<=>' (for stringwise and numeric comparison respectively).

Just using 'true' (ie non-zero, probably 1) and false (ie 0 or '') will lead to confusion.

If f(a, b) is 'false' then f(b, a) must also be false because a 'Equals' b - for whatever value of 'Equals' this sorting choses to use.
If f(a, b) is 'true' then f(b, a) must return '-1' (ie a true value, but *not* just true) because a is 'Greater Than' b in this case, and therefore b must be 'Less Than' a - not 'Equal To', or something is decidedly wierd.

You have to be consistent however you chose to do it.

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Re^6: Pearls (not really) of Perl programming
by Courage (Parson) on Dec 01, 2004 at 23:35 UTC

I just could not resist to point out for general idea (I saw that in p5p list) but I forgot to recheck all details

But once we decided to be precise, let me make additional correction.
Requirement to return '-1', '0' and '+1' is too restrictive. According to perldoc -f sort:

parison order.  If SUBNAME is specified, it gives the name of a
subroutine that returns an integer less than, equal to, or
greater than 0, depending on how the elements of the list are
to be ordered.  (The "<=>" and "cmp" operators are extremely
useful in such routines.)  SUBNAME may be a scalar variable
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