The solution is: If you have numerics, zero-pad them using sprintf "%05i" for example. The cmp only missorts on numbers of different digit lengths.

Jeroen
"We are not alone"(FZ)

Maybe you could try putting the numeric comparison first, as that's most likely to return 0.

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

For some fairly simple answers to this problem, see my responses to How do I do a natural sort on an array?. I plan to update these and add some more answers but I haven't gotten back to that yet, sorry.

use strict;
use vars qw(@Claim_Fields %Claim_Table);

@Claim_Fields = (
    [ 'claim_batch_number', 'N', 'A8' ],
    [ 'claim_number', 'N', 'A6' ],
    [ 'claim_type', 'L', 'A2'],
    [ 'payment_direct', 'N', 'A2'],
);
%Claim_Table = get_table();
[download]

Main:
{
    my $data_file = $ARGV[0];
    my $sort_by = $ARGV[1];
    open(CLAIMS, $data_file) or die "CANNOT OPEN FILE: $!";
    my @claim_records = ();
    while (<CLAIMS>) {
        push(@claim_records, read_record($_));
    }
    close(CLAIMS);
[download]

Also, I moved your open and close out of subroutines, since it's good practice to close your handles in the same routine in which you opened them.

    &Sort_File($sort_by, @claim_records);
}
[download]

One of the things that was failing in your original script was that @claim_records wasn't getting passed to @sort_file. I turned $sort_by and @claim_records into arguments. Look at perlman:perlsub.

sub Sort_File {
    my ($sort_by, @claim_records) = @_;

    my $sort_sub;

    # If the sorting type is numeric
    if ( $Claim_Table{$sort_by} eq 'N' ) {

        # Create sub for numeric sort
        $sort_sub = sub { $a->{$sort_by} <=> $b->{$sort_by} };

    } # End if numeric

    # Otherwise it's lexical
    else {

        # Create sub for lexical sort
        $sort_sub = sub { $a->{$sort_by} cmp $b->{$sort_by} };

    }

    foreach my $record ( sort $sort_sub @claim_records ) {
        print STDOUT $record->{'claim_number'}, "\n";
    }
}
[download]

Finally, we close up with the original read_record() method, modified slightly to call the new get_fields() and get_template() subroutines. See perlman:perlref for more about handling lists of lists.

sub read_record {
    my ($line) = @_;
    my %claim_record = ();
    @claim_record{ get_fields() } = unpack( get_template(), $line);
    return \%claim_record;
}

##
## Returns all of the field names in @Claim_Fields
##
sub get_fields {
    my @fields = ();
    foreach my $claim_field ( @Claim_Fields ) {
        push(@fields, $claim_field->[0]);
    }
    return @fields;
}

##
## Builds the template from the template fields in @Claim_Fields
##
sub get_template {
    my $template = '';
    foreach my $claim_field ( @Claim_Fields ) {
        $template .= $claim_field->[2];
    }
    return $template;
}

##
## Builds a hash table for lookup from @Claim_Fields
##
sub get_table {
    my %table = ();
    foreach my $claim_field ( @Claim_Fields ) {
        $table{$claim_field->[0]} = $claim_field->[1];
    }
    return %table;
}
[download]

stephen

Here is what I am doing. The file format is one long line of data that is supposed to be broken into records of 434 characters. I need to read all the records into a hash and then be able to sort the hash(so to speak) based on one of the fields. Once the field is sorted I need to be able to print all the fields that are associated with it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Sorry for it being such a long message, but I figure the more I put the better you all are able to assist me.


$DAT = "/where/my/file/is";

use constant CLAIM_TEMPLATE => 'A8A6A2A2A6A4A30A4A4A8A8A2A11A25A1A8A3A
+8A8A8A8A6A8A8A8A1A10A2A20A2A14A6A4A8A16A20A1A2A1A6A1A14A2A2A8A8A2A8A2
+A1A16A8A1A1A1A10A5A20A15A1A1';
use constant CLAIM_KEYS => qw(
    claim_batch_number
    claim_number
    claim_type
    payment_direct
    pharmacy_number
    chain_number
    pharmacy_name
    reject_code_1
    reject_code_2
    rx_number
    rx_date
    drug_type_code
    national_drug_code
    product_name
    newrefill_indicator
    metric_quantity
    days_supply
    ingredient_cost_billed
    ingredient_cost_paid
    dispensing_fee
    copay
    tax
    total_amount_paid
    ucr_amount
    member_birthdate
    member_sex
    cardholder_number
    member_number
    alternate_card_number
    patient_relationship
    physician_number
    diagnosis_code
    pdm_system_number
    pdm_sponsor_number
    pdm_group_number
    group_number
    generic_code
    mac_number
    daw_indicator
    therapeutic_class_code
    rx_otc_code
    gpi
    exception_code
    override_code
    period_ending
    paid_date
    compound_code
    batch_date
    claim_counter
    mail_order
    benefit_code
    awp
    claim_indicator
    drug_preference_indicator
    pricing_indicator
    drug_manufacturer
    controlled_substance
    patient_last_name
    patient_first_name
    patient_middle_initial
    third_party_code
);
Main:
{
    &Open_File;
    my @claim_records = ();
    while (<CLAIMS>) {
      push(@claim_records, read_record($_));
    }
    my $sort_by = 'claim_number';
 
    &Sort_File();
    &Close_File;
}
sub Sort_File {
    my $sort_by = 'claim_number';
    foreach $record ( sort { $a->{$sort_by} <=> $b->{$sort_by} || $a{$
+sort_by} cmp $b{$sort_by} } @claim_records ) {
      print STDOUT $record->{'claim_number'}, "\n";
    }
}
sub read_record {
    my ($line) = @_;
    my %claim_record = ();
    @claim_record{ CLAIM_KEYS } = unpack(CLAIM_TEMPLATE, $line);
    return \%claim_record;
}
sub Open_File {
  open(CLAIMS, $DAT) || die "CANNOT OPEN FILE";
}
sub Close_File {
  close(CLAIMS);
}
[download]

Update: The claim_number example data includes:
003549
000081
004951
001249
000059
Hope this help.
Prince99

Too Much is never enough...

ahhh. I see, you are trying to sort by a field in claim records... hmmm... can you keep track of which records are numeric? then you could do...

%numeric = (mac_number => 1, generic_code => 1);
foreach $record ( sort { if($numeric($sort_by)) { return $a->{$sort_by
+} <=> $b->{$sort_by} } else { return $a{$sort_by} cmp $b{$sort_by} } 
+} @claim_records ) {
        print STDOUT $record->{'claim_number'}, "\n";
}
[download]

you may want to move your sort code into a subroutine and just call sort with the sub name instead of direct code, make your code easier to read since the code in the sort is getting long
                - Ant