Re: difficulty in sorting

I find changing $/ to be too confusing. That's not to say that it can't be used to good effect, only that it's easier to read usually when you don't. So, here goes:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my @sortable;
while ( <DATA> ) {

    # are we in the ref's?
    if (/^\<ref/)
    {
        # keep track of it, but don't print it out yet.
        push @sortable, $_;
        next;
    }
    
    # else, are we done ref's?
    if (@sortable)
    {
        print for sort @sortable;
        # done with them, get rid of 'em.
        @sortable = ();
    }

    # this line can be printed out at this point.
    print;
}


__DATA__
[ same as yours, so I'm not repeating it ]
[download]

It seems to get the job done. Of course, I'm assuming that all the ref lines are in a row.

Comment on Re: difficulty in sorting Download Code

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Re^2: difficulty in sorting by texuser74 (Monk) on Aug 21, 2008 at 05:40 UTC
Tanktalus, Thanks for your code and the instructions are great. As i mentioned earlier, I need to sort the lines that start with "<ref" and with in the <address>...</address> range. Though your code sorts, it is not checking the range <address>...</address>. i.e. if the data contains `<ref refid="aff2">2</ref> <ref refid="aff1">1</ref> <address> <state>address1</state> <ref refid="aff1">1</ref> <ref refid="aff2">2</ref> <ref refid="e2"/> <ref refid="e4"/> <ref refid="aff4">4</ref> </address>` [download] the first two "<ref"s outside <address> is also getting sorted.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: difficulty in sorting by RMGir (Prior) on Aug 21, 2008 at 09:21 UTC
It sounds like all you need is a minor tweak to Tanktalus's code then: #! /usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @sortable; my $inAddrRange=0; while ( <DATA> ) { # are we starting an <address> range? $inAddrRange=1 if /<address>/; # are we ending a range with </address>? $inAddrRange=0 if m{</address>}; # are we in the ref's AND in an addr range? if ($inAddrRange && /^\<ref/) { # keep track of it, but don't print it out yet. push @sortable, $_; next; } # else, are we done ref's? if (@sortable) { print for sort @sortable; # done with them, get rid of 'em. @sortable = (); } # this line can be printed out at this point. print; } __DATA__ [ same as yours, so I'm not repeating it ] [download] I haven't tested this, but I think it'll do what you want... Mike	[reply] [d/l]