Cool idea. stefp++.
Curious if sort could get into a 'never finish' scenario if the right values came up from rand though?
Thought you might like this version of the fisher yates shuffle.
sub fy_shuf{my($l,$c,$r)=@_;map{$r=int(rand($_+1));
@$l[$_,$r]=@$l[$r,$_]}reverse 0..$#$l for 0..$c||0};

my @a=(1..52);
fy_shuf(\@a,5);

[download]
UPDATE
Having had a look at japhy home node I borrowed an idea from him and reduced it more. (Oh and I decided that shuffling mutiple times was unecessary.) 
sub fy_shuf{my($l,$r)=@_;map{$r=int(rand(@$l-$_+1));@$l[-$_,$r]=@$l[$r
+,-$_]}0..$#$l};

[download]

Yves
--
You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)

In reply to Re: sort to shuffle by demerphq
in thread functional programming: sort to shuffle by stefp

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