in reply to Re: Efficient access to sparse lists?
in thread Efficient access to sparse lists?

Instead of the map/grep/for mess I gave you, try something like this to convert a sparse list to a hash:
my %hash = (); for(my $x = 0; $x <= $#sparse_list; $x++) { my $y = $spase_list[$x]; next if $y eq undef; $hash{$x} = $y; }

As an aside, you can use exists and delete on array elements but it comes highly discouraged. So don't do it.

Apologies for the typos...

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Re: (corrections) Re: Answer: Efficient access to sparse lists?
by Improv (Pilgrim) on Jan 26, 2001 at 01:45 UTC
    The problem is that I need fast *ordered* access, something that a hash really won't help me with.

      Ah, now I finally understand what you want. (:

      You need a more complex data structure. You can wrap a nice interface around it if you like, but I'll leave that part up to you (or others).

      I think you've found a reason to implement a linked list in Perl (normally you don't need such things in Perl). I went with a circular, doubly-linked list for ease of implementation (where "turn 0" is a dummy turn used to find the first and last turns):

      my %turn= ( 0=>{Next=>5,Prev=>53}, 5=>{Turn=>"turn 0",Prev=>0,Next=>28}, 28=>{Turn=>"turn 28",Prev=>5,Next=>53}, 53=>{Turn=>"turn 53",Prev=>28,Next=>0}, ); sub pushTurn { my( $num, $turn )= @_; my $last= $turn{0}{Prev}; $turn{$num}= {Turn=>$turn,Prev=>$last,Next=>0}; $turn{0}{Prev}= $num; $turn{$last}{Next}= $num; } sub deleTurn { my( $num )= @_; my( $prev, $next )= @{ $turn{$num} }{qw( Prev Next )}; $turn{$prev}{Next}= $next; $turn{$next}{Prev}= $prev; delete $turn{$num}; }

      I hope that is close enough to correct that you can get an implementation working. {-:

      Use:

      my %turn= ( 0=>{Next=>0,Prev=>0} );
      to bootstrap the data structure.

              - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
      Have you considered a linked list in a hash?

      Update: Apologies for the redundant post - I hadn't discovered the notes depth setting until a few moments ago, so hadn't noticed tye's post.

      Pete

      What you are talking about sounds like what a BTree is for. You can get it done in Perl, use DB_File (or the next generation and possibly immature BerkeleyDB) to get it in C.

      If you go with the latter two options watch out for the need to set a sort order. You will run into that will the all-Perl solution as well, but there you can modify the module to work that way...

        FYI, since this problem does not require sorted inserts into the middle of the list, a BTree is overkill. A hashed linked list is hugely simpler and probably faster for most operations.

                - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")