On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 11:13:47PM -0500, John Porter wrote:
> Brent Dax wrote:
> > Someone else showed a very ugly syntax with an anonymous
> > hash, and I was out to prove there was a prettier way to do it.
> Do we want prettier? Or do we want more useful?
> Perl is not exactly known for its pretty syntax.
If you have to explicitly specify both the forward and inverse transforms,
then it isn't very useful -- it's nothing more then map/sort/map. OTOH, if
you only have to specify the forward mapping, it becomes more useful. Thus,
I think the best syntax is
tsort({xform}, {compare}, @list), where the {}s are anon blocks or curried
expressions (same thing) and xform specifies the forward mapping (IE (lc
^_)) and compare specifies the comparator (IE (^_ cmp ^_)).
This would always (do the equiv to) create a LoL in the inner map, sort on
the ->[0] elem, and extract the ->[1] elem. Thus, it might not be as
effecent as a hand-crafted schwartzian, but will be at least as efficent as
a naieve straight sort (except in pathalogical cases, like tsort((^_),
(^_<=>^_), @list)).
-=- James Mastros
--
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapt in awe, is as good as dead.
-=- Albert Einstein
AIM: theorbtwo homepage: http://www.rtweb.net/theorb/
