The N largest values can be found in O(n) in the following way: 
my @list_o_num = qw( 1 22 44 55 63 2 1 2 4 54 8 7 9 2 9 );

print "LIST_O_NUM: @list_o_num \n";

my @l = sort { $a <=> $b } @list_o_num[0..2];

for ( 3 .. $#list_o_num ) {
    my $n = $list_o_num[$_];

    if    ( $n > $l[2] ) { @l = ( $l[1], $l[2], $n ) }
    elsif ( $n > $l[1] ) { @l = ( $l[1], $n, $l[2] ) }
    elsif ( $n > $l[0] ) { @l = ( $n, $l[1], $l[2] ) }
}

print "l: @l \n";

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* to be more precise, this is O(K*n)

In reply to Re: How to find the N largest values in an array? by fundflow
in thread How to find the N largest values in an array? by dubx56

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