Re: best practices for a complex sort + splitting an alphanumeric string (natural)

I'd use something similar to one of the techniques found by searching for natural sort. Likely:

my @sortedIdx=
        map { unpack "N", substr($_,-4) }
        sort
        map {
            my $key = $oids{ifName}{$_};
            $key =~ s[(\d+)][ '0' . pack "N", $1 ]ge;
            $key . pack "CN", 0, $_
        } keys %{$oids{ifName}};
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Though I'm a little curious why your integer indices are used to index a hash not an array. If your keys aren't just integers, then you'll need:

my @keys= ( keys %{$oids{ifName}} )[
        map { unpack "N", substr($_,-4) }
        sort
        map {
            my $key = $oids{ifName}{$_};
            $key =~ s[(\d+)][ '0' . pack "N", $1 ]ge;
            $key . pack "CN", 0, $_-1
        } 1 .. keys %{$oids{ifName}}
];
[download]

(Updated)

- tye

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Re^2: best practices for a complex sort + splitting an alphanumeric string (natural) by gabrielle (Novice) on Jan 13, 2006 at 20:42 UTC
...searching for natural sort Thanks! I had not heard that term before. That will be very useful. Though I'm a little curious why your integer indices are used to index a hash not an array. That's a really good question & embarassingly, I have no good technical answer. I suspect it is both because this is recycled code that I'm reworking to handle a larger data set, and the original keys were not integers; and because I work with hashes so much more than arrays that it's just a more comfortable method for me. Thanks for pointing that out - I will re-think how I'm handling this data structure. Update:After dinking around with this a bit: The integer index is an important key into other data structures (it's an ifIndex, if you are familiar with SNMP MIB-II). This was not obvious from my small example, sorry. The indices are not always sequential - often a few (or several, gah!) are missing here and there. For me, it's clearer (and therefore easier to maintain) to think of the integer as a hash key. Trying to work with an array for that was a very interesting exercise, thanks. :)	[reply]

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Re^2: best practices for a complex sort + splitting an alphanumeric string (natural)
by gabrielle (Novice) on Jan 13, 2006 at 20:42 UTC

...searching for natural sort

Thanks! I had not heard that term before. That will be very useful.

Though I'm a little curious why your integer indices are used to index a hash not an array.

That's a really good question & embarassingly, I have no good technical answer. I suspect it is both because this is recycled code that I'm reworking to handle a larger data set, and the original keys were not integers; and because I work with hashes so much more than arrays that it's just a more comfortable method for me.

Thanks for pointing that out - I will re-think how I'm handling this data structure.

Update:After dinking around with this a bit: The integer index is an important key into other data structures (it's an ifIndex, if you are familiar with SNMP MIB-II). This was not obvious from my small example, sorry. The indices are not always sequential - often a few (or several, gah!) are missing here and there. For me, it's clearer (and therefore easier to maintain) to think of the integer as a hash key. Trying to work with an array for that was a very interesting exercise, thanks. :)

[reply]