The code below seems a bit clunky to me. It is generating the correct result. It's unlikely to be used with a huge list of tagIndexes, but the list could easily be a few hundred entrys long.

Part of cleaning it up is likely to involve a Schwartzian transform, but the flagValue sub seems clunky to me too. Any ideas for cleaning it up?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

my %tagTypes =
    (
    code => ['code', 'code', ''],
    bold => ['b', 'Bold', 'F'],
    teletype => ['tt', 'Teletype text', 'F'],
    id => ['link id://', 'Node id link', 'L'],
    readmore => ['readmore', 'Readmore', 'RB'],
    readmoretitle => ['readmoretitle', 'Readmore Title', 'RTB'],
    );
    
my @tagIndexes =
    (
    ['on', 'code', '1.0'],
    ['off', 'code', '3.6'],
    ['on', 'id', '3.9'],
    ['on', 'bold', '3.9'],
    ['off', 'id', '3.20'],
    ['off', 'bold', '3.20'],
    );
    
print join "\n", map {"$_->[0] $_->[1] $_->[2]"} sort modeOrder @tagIn
+dexes;

sub modeOrder {
    # Sort compare routine to order tags by markup generation order
    my ($aType, $aItem, $aIndex) = @$a;
    my ($bType, $bItem, $bIndex) = @$b;

    return $_ if ($_ = int ($aIndex) <=> int ($bIndex));
    
    $aIndex =~ s/\d*\.//;
    $bIndex =~ s/\d*\.//;
    
    return $_ if $_ = $aIndex <=> $bIndex;
    return $_ if $_ = $aType cmp $bType;

    my $aMode = ${$tagTypes{$aItem}}[2];
    my $bMode = ${$tagTypes{$bItem}}[2];
    
    return flagValue ($aMode) <=> flagValue ($bMode) if $aType eq 'on'
+;
    return flagValue ($bMode) <=> flagValue ($aMode); # off case
}

sub flagValue {
    my $flags = shift;
    
    return 1 if -1 != index $flags, 'R';
    return 2 if -1 != index $flags, 'T';
    return 3 if -1 != index $flags, 'B';
    return 4 if -1 != index $flags, 'I';
    return 5 if -1 != index $flags, 'F';
    return 6 if -1 != index $flags, 'L';
    return 7;
}
[download]

Prints:

on code 1.0
off code 3.6
on bold 3.9
on id 3.9
off id 3.20
off bold 3.20
[download]

Update: So far sub flagValue hasn't been addressed. The intent of the routine is to priority encode a sort value given a string that may contain multiple flags. For example a flag string may be 'BFXCU' which should encode as 3 using the original code.

Note that the actual values used are unimportant except that it would be good if the sort order were the same regardless of using <=> or cmp. The sort order must remain the same as the original code.

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