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};
}
[download]

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

Use:

my %turn= ( 0=>{Next=>0,Prev=>0} );
[download]

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

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")

I am not convinced that the problem does not require inserts in sorted position. Whether or not that was envisioned was not said, but my address books have names added randomly, and I expect them back in order. A BTree is definitely the right structure for that expectation.

I would have to bench both ways for speed, but to get the full functionality that a BTree offers (most of which is very well suited to address books) with hand-rolled Perl will wind up being more complex than loading a widely used and well-optimized standard library.

Sure, a linked list is easier to roll by hand. But it is easier still to not roll by hand at all...