in reply to Re^6: Bug in Sort::Fields?
in thread Split(), Initial Spaces, & a limit?

The field 1 sort is not sorted at all. We know why, we've been beating that poor horsie all afternoon.

It is being sorted correctly. Empty strings are placed first. You're miscounting the fields.

The field 5 sort is sorted correctly.

You say that because you haven't seen the following example:

use strict; use warnings; use Sort::Fields; use Data::Dumper; my @data = split /\n/, <<'__EOI__'; 10 0 0 6 4 1 0 0 5 3 __EOI__ print "Field 1 sort:\n", Dumper(fieldsort( ['1n'], @data)); print "Field 5 sort:\n", Dumper(fieldsort( ['5n'], @data)); __END__ Field 1 sort: $VAR1 = ' 1 0 0 5 3'; $VAR2 = '10 0 0 6 4'; Field 5 sort: $VAR1 = '10 0 0 6 4'; $VAR2 = ' 1 0 0 5 3';

Field 1: "" < 10
Field 5: 4 < 5

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Re^8: Bug in Sort::Fields?
by cmv (Chaplain) on Jul 20, 2010 at 20:52 UTC
    Ah, I think we both have different definitions of fields.

    Your definition (please correct if I'm wrong) is whatever comes out of the split that is currently implemented in Sort::Fields. In perl terms it would be the output from:

    perl -MData::Dumper -e'$_=" a b c"; print Dumper(split /\s+/, $_)' $VAR1 = ''; $VAR2 = 'a'; $VAR3 = 'b'; $VAR4 = 'c';
    Using your definition, there are 4 fields here (list indices 0..3)

    My definition is what a user of Sort::Fields would naturally count as a field (ignoring initial whitespace), before its musty innards get hold of it. In perl terms, this would be along the lines of:

    perl -MData::Dumper -e' $_=" a b c"; print Dumper(split)' $VAR1 = 'a'; $VAR2 = 'b'; $VAR3 = 'c';
    Using my definition, there are 3 fields here (list indices 0..2)

    I claim that Sort::Fields already will ignore leading whitespace in any field (my definition) except field 1. When there exists leading whitespace in what I call field 1, the currently implemented split in Sort::Fields will return a null for field 1 (your definition).

    Is this a good description of the situation?

      Ah, I think we both have different definitions of fields.

      Yay! I've been trying to point out the disconnect between what you think is a field and what you tell Sort::Fields is a field since the beginning.

        I think I finally got it! Thanks for staying with the discussion. I guess this just goes to show that I can still be taught - but it just takes a wile sometimes (one could say I'm 10 levels slow...)