The first thing I note is that your method doesn't handle double-entries. The first entry found with that value will be the one used.

One question I'd have is if you need to maintain the initial ordering. If you don't, you could build some sort of Schwartzian transform and move the cross-array slices around that way.

A deeper question would be if parallel arrays are really what you want to do. Anytime I see parallel arrays, especially in Perl, I start itching to offer up possible better solutions. For example, you have a record. Whenever I hear "record", I immediately think "hash". They're built for storing records. Then, you have a list of hashrefs for your various records. If you need to print out all of a given field, then iterate over the array.

The reason I suggest this is that sorting this list of hashrefs becomes trivial.

@sorted_list = sort {$a->{Field} <=> $b->{Field} ||
                     $a->{Field} cmp $b->{Field}}
                     @unsorted_list

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And, double-entries are automatically taken care of. Plus, you can now do multi-level sorts. Sort on state, then town, or whatever.

In reply to Re: Sorting arrays and maintaining an index by satchboost
in thread Sorting arrays and maintaining an index by Prince99

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