sub simple_sort {
  @_[0 .. $#_] = sort @_;
}

# and

sub complex_sort (&@) {
  my $c = shift;
  @_[0 .. $#_] = sort $c @_;
}
[download]

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

1. my VAR ... This creates a lexical variable within the innermost scope you're in. In this case, it creates an array called @d.
2. = ... assignment operator (but, you knew that)
3. sort LIST ... Takes a list (or array which it converts to a list, but that's unimportant) which can be named or unnamed. In this case, it takes a list called @d, which has to have been defined earlier (at least, for it to make sense).

If you put -w on your shebang line, you'd see a redefinition of @d warning.

As for it being unPerl-like, it's not. You may be used to a lot of in-place operators, and that's not C-like. But, sort doesn't work in-place, primarily because you often want to sort an array, then put the sorted result into another array.

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important

my @d=sort(@d);
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

My apologies, the code I posted was not "straight from the
Llama's mouth" and I should be more careful in using
that phrase. The code which I was pondering is on page
55 of the 2nd edition of the Llama and reads as follows:

@y = sort(@y);

What caught my mind is that Perl makes a point of not having one
repeat variables on both sides of an = and
sorting an array while maintaining its name is the opposite.
With humble contrition,
jg

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my @d = qw,I am stoned,;
{
   my @d = sort @d;
   printf "Q: %s?\n","@d";
}
printf "A: %s.\n","@d";
__END__
# The output is (as it should be)
Q:I am stoned?
A:I am stoned.
[download]

Basically what it comes down to is that you have to turn on strict and warnings, and revisit perlsyn and perlfunc, try things out before posting questions.

 
___crazyinsomniac_______________________________________
Disclaimer: Don't blame. It came from inside the void
perl -e "$q=$_;map({chr unpack qq;H*;,$_}split(q;;,q*H*));print;$q/$q;"

sort() is an inbuilt function. It returns a sorted version of the array you pass it. If you want to keep that sorted array you need to assign it to an array. This is a lazy way to do it!

When you say sort @d you are actually saying sort { $a cmp $b } @d where $a and $b are magical vars that hold sequential pairs of elements in the sort. You use cmp to get an alphabetic sort and <=> to get a numeric one. If you want reverse the sort order you transpose the $a and $b. You can have very complex code in the block preceeding the sort because you have access to the sequential pairs in $a and $b. The default is { $a cmp $b } which is an ascending order aphabetic sort.

If you want wild, wicked and short look into grep and map in perlman:perlfunc.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

I suppose that you point is that you feel it is too verbose. But sorting in place would be difficult for a list because it is by definition read-only. Also you may want to return a sorted list of the elements of an array without changing the array itself.