So it sounds like the resolution for this bug is to document that sort uses aliases like grep does. I've stolen the wording from grep.
-- Michael G Schwern [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pobox.com/~schwern Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -- Phillip K. Dick
--- pod/perlfunc.pod 2005/07/24 02:57:16 1.2 +++ pod/perlfunc.pod 2005/07/24 02:58:42 @@ -4926,6 +4926,12 @@ When C<use locale> is in effect, C<sort LIST> sorts LIST according to the current collation locale. See L<perllocale>. +sort returns aliases into the original list, much as a for loop's +index variable aliases the list elements. That is, modifying an +element of a list returned by sort (for example, in a "foreach", "map" +or "grep") actually modifies the element in the original list. This +is usually something to be avoided when writing clear code. + Perl 5.6 and earlier used a quicksort algorithm to implement sort. That algorithm was not stable, and I<could> go quadratic. (A I<stable> sort preserves the input order of elements that compare equal. Although
