Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. The following test code should produce an infinite loop (because there is no documented alternative): 
#!/usr/bin/perl 

use strict;
use warnings;

my $iteration = 0;
print sort byStupid (qw(A B C));

sub byStupid {
    $iteration++;
    $iteration > 10000 and die "10000 is a lot to sort three things";
    if ($b eq 'C' and $a eq 'A') {
    $b cmp $a;
    }
    else {
    $a cmp $b;
    }
}

[download]
Unfortunately perl sort is content to produce incorrect output in finite time. i.e. it chose to ignore the correct positioning of B and C in the list and produced CAB as output. The correct behaviour would be an infinite loop or a fatal error because the array in any order is an incorrectly returned result from function 'sort'.

One world, one people

In reply to Re^4: Sort mechanics problems ... by anonymized user 468275
in thread Sort mechanics problems with objects and potentially contradicting comparisons (would cause infinite loop) by anonymized user 468275

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.