Ah, thank you! Heaps sound like a useful data structure for this problem. (It really shows that I don't have a CS background; doesn't it? I don't know the lingo, or even many of the concepts.)

That said -- wouldn't a heap grow to include all items first before you extract the relevant ones? Depending on how large your data is and how much memory you can or cannot afford to throw at it, I can see advantages to my approach, too.

Heap::Simple doesn't work for me, unfortunately: it requires either Heap::Simple::XS or Heap::Simple::Perl, and both fail their test suites.

In reply to Re^2: Size-limited, fitness-based lists by AppleFritter
in thread Size-limited, fitness-based lists by AppleFritter

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