in reply to sorting a directories content

print join "\n", sort @DirList;

[download]

prints sorted by file/dir name.

print join "\n", sort {-M $a <=> -M $b} @DirList;

[download]

prints sorted by modification date.

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

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Re^2: sorting a directories content
by betterworld (Curate) on Apr 13, 2007 at 13:25 UTC
    print join "\n", sort {-M $a <=> -M $b} @DirList;

    This will result in a flood of stat calls. This would be more efficient:

    print join "\n", map $_->[0], sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]} map [$_, -M], @DirList;

    Plus, one might want to do something if -M returns undef (due to permission problems or broken symlinks).

    Update: corrected my silly typing errors, thanks to GrandFather

[reply]
[d/l]

      The Schwartzian Transform is indeed most appropriate in this case. However your sort code is a little buggy. OP may have better luck with:

      print join "\n", map {"$_->[0]"} sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]} map {[$_, 
+-M]} @DirList;

      [download]

      Note that the replies to What is "Schwarzian Transform" (aka Schwartzian) contain many useful comments and references pertaining to the Schwartzian Transform too.

      DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel
[reply]
[d/l]

        An even faster solution that sorts files with identical timestamps by name: 

        # Assumes 32-bit timestamps.
print map { substr($_, 4) . "\n" }
      sort
      map { pack('Na*', (stat($_))[9], $_) } @DirList;

        [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
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