How do I sort something alphabetically?

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by arturo (Vicar) on Nov 06, 2000 at 21:29 UTC
The default sort behavior with strings is "ASCIIbetical," rather than alphabetical. ASCII-wise, the capital letters (as a group) come before the lowercase (as a group); thus "D" comes before "a." So assuming you want to sort a list of words, what you want is: `# make it a "sort sub" sub alphabetical { # compares lower-cased versions of the strings lc($a) cmp lc($b); } # to sort having defined this sub, you do @list = sort alphabetical @list;` [download] Or, to avoid making a bunch of tiny little otherwise useless functions, sort also lets you use a block in place of a function: `@list = sort { lc($a) cmp lc($b) } @list` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by extremely (Priest) on Nov 07, 2000 at 06:43 UTC
I gotta chime in here and point out that a simple sort with `{ lc($a) cmp lc ($b) }` may not be what you want. You may wish to do a fancier sort like the second one in this example: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w my @un = <DATA>; print "once:\n"; print sort { lc($a) cmp lc($b) } @un; print "\nagain:\n"; print sort { (lc($a) cmp lc($b)) or ($a cmp $b) } @un; __DATA__ Mark MARK mark Dave DAVE DAVEY Davey davey MarkY` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by jptxs (Curate) on Nov 06, 2000 at 07:02 UTC
`use strict; my @list = qw(b d e c a f g w i l z x p o q s); print sort @list; print "\n\n"; jptxs:/home/jptxs $ perl -w alpha abcdefgilopqswxz jptxs:/home/jptxs $` [download] Basically, see sort - a function which will sort on any given criteria that defaults to sorting alphabetically for strings, or numerically for numbers (duh). Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by tedv (Pilgrim) on Nov 07, 2000 at 04:05 UTC
Sort also lets you use a block in place of a function: `@list = sort { lc($a) cmp lc($b) } @list` [download] So often you need to make a bunch of tiny little otherwise useless functions. -Ted Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by clemburg (Curate) on Nov 07, 2000 at 10:27 UTC
If you are into advanced sorting orders you will want to look at Sort::ArbBiLex, which supports the construction of arbitrary sort orders.	[reply]
Re: How do I sort somehting alphabetically? by brainpan (Monk) on Nov 06, 2000 at 06:19 UTC
Have you checked out sort? Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply]
Re: How do I sort something alphabetically? by St{)Ля (Initiate) on Oct 19, 2002 at 18:54 UTC
Hey I have had the same problem with ASCIIbetical. It is a strange and unlogical method of sorting. The answer to this is to look at Learning Perl by O'REILLY, Chapter 15. `Strings and Sorting`. In chapter 15 it will tell you EXACTLY how to change the default to any kind of sorting method you want, even a custom method! <STDIN> Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply] [d/l]