Advice - storing data - which structure do you recommend? (details inside)

Kratimoyporroon has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Basically, I have a bunch of data I've gathered from an online forum: name, time, post length, and some other random statistics. I want to be able to sort this data by several different fields. Say, first by time and then by name. What data structure do you recommend, and are there any build in methods to sort this stuff? Could you give a brief example? Thanks.

Comment on Advice - storing data - which structure do you recommend? (details inside)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Advice - storing data - which structure do you recommend? (details inside) by tachyon (Chancellor) on Mar 17, 2002 at 20:40 UTC
DBI and SQL is the way to go. Here are a few links to get you started: Mark-Jason Dominus's A Short Guide to DBI; DBI manpage Tricks with DBI Programming the Perl DBI; You can use the DBD::CSV driver to flat files (Comma Separated Value test files) if you do not have a real database available. cheers tachyon s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print	[reply]
Re: Advice - storing data - which structure do you recommend? (details inside) by zengargoyle (Deacon) on Mar 17, 2002 at 20:18 UTC
Would you use SQLite? It or other modules in the thread can put your data into a (RAM\|FILE\|DB\|whatever) SQL queryable object. `my @list_of_ids = XX_query('SELECT id from my_data ORDER BY title');` [download] SQL will let you do about anything. For the more purely perl check out A Fresh Look at Efficient Perl Sorting .	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Advice - storing data - which structure do you recommend? (details inside) by cyocum (Curate) on Mar 17, 2002 at 22:43 UTC
If you want to stay within Perl to do this, you could use the Perl sort function. It allows you to write what is basically an anonymous sub to let you sort anyway you want. Of couse, this puts a constraint on your data structure to an array but if all the attributes are always in the same order then it does not make much difference.	[reply]