in reply to Re^2: Golf: reverse sort /etc/passwd by UID
in thread Golf: reverse sort /etc/passwd by UID

It works, using the exact input I specified (as well as my /etc/passwd file...

UPDATE: see my post about me being wrong...

Tommy
A mistake can be valuable or costly, depending on how faithfully you pursue correction
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Re^4: Golf: reverse sort /etc/passwd by UID
by thundergnat (Deacon) on Feb 05, 2013 at 20:46 UTC

    Notice that your input is already "sorted". All that one liner does is reverse it.

[reply]

      Noted. Re-reading perldoc -f sort reveals that the sort of "magic" I thought I was seeing wasn't the case. $a and $b are package globals explicitly passed by Perl itself to the sort block (or subroutine of your definition). It's not a bare leftside-rightside comparison of whatever expressions you may provide. You have to explicitly use the $a and $b package global symbols, and $_ isn't $a/$b. Them's the rules.

      I do indeed stand corrected.

      Tommy
      A mistake can be valuable or costly, depending on how faithfully you pursue correction
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