Here, the first 10 characters correspond but then the second string runs out. Using our rule, we'd order ABC-MARKET before ABC-MARKET.ABC-MARKET, which is wrong. I guess I could try following that rule, but if the character position in the longer string that corresponds to the first position in the shorter string where there is no character is a "-" or a ".", then the longer string is "less". Just a thought. I'll have to check out the data more and try it out.
Oh no! Its slower! I wrote a function implementing what is described above and its actually slower (about 1/2 as slow) than that huge thing I posted earlier. Does anything stand out here as being inefficient? Here it is:
sub compare {
my $a = shift;
my $b = shift; my $asciiDASH = 45;
my $asciiDOT = 46; my @a = unpack("C*", $a);
my @b = unpack("C*", $b); foreach my $achar (@a) {
my $bchar = shift(@b); if (defined($achar)) {
if (defined($bchar)) {
# both defined
if ($achar == $bchar) {
#print "$achar == $bchar\n";
next;
} elsif ($achar > $bchar) {
#print "$achar > $bchar\n";
return 1;
} else {
#print "$achar < $bchar\n";
return -1;
}
} else {
# achar defined, bchar not
if ($achar == $asciiDASH) {
#print "achar: $achar is dash\n";
return -1;
} else {
#print "achar: $achar is NOT dash\n";
return 1;
}
}
} else {
# achar undefined
if (defined($bchar)) {
# bchar defined, achar not
if ($bchar == $asciiDASH) {
#print "bchar: $bchar is dash\n";
return 1;
} else {
#print "bchar: $bchar is NOT dash\n";
return -1;
}
} else {
# both undefined
return 0;
}
}
} my $bchar = shift(@b);
if (!defined($bchar)) {
return 0;
} else {
if($bchar == $asciiDASH) {
#print "bchar: $bchar is dash\n";
return 1;
} else {
#print "bchar: $bchar is NOT dash\n";
return -1;
}
}}
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