in reply to Sorting issues

Forgive my simple brain but am I missing the point? 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @database = <DATA>;

sub g($) {(split/\|/,shift)[$#_]}

my @sorted = sort {g$a<=>g$b} @database;

print @sorted;

__DATA__
a|b|c|10
d|e|f|g|h|9
i|100
j|k|2
l|m|n|o|11

[download]

"Argument is futile - you will be ignorralated!"

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Sorting issues
by blue_cowdawg (Monsignor) on May 28, 2001 at 02:26 UTC

    You forgot something: You need to a 

    chomp @database;

    [download]
    before the sort. And as merlyn points out this is a good application of the Schwartzian Transform.

    Peter L. BergholdSchooner Technology Consulting, Inc.
    Peter@Berghold.Netwww.berghold.net
[reply]
[d/l]

      i purposely left out the chomp because it works without.

      ++ for you if you can tell me when the \n will screw up the sort.

      The fix to dump the newlines is: sub g($){(split/\||\n/,shift)[-1]};

      "Argument is futile - you will be ignorralated!"

[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom