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=head1 TITLE
Sort order for any hash
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: David Nicol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 17 Aug 2000
Version: 1
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 124
=head1 ABSTRACT
Herein a new syntax is introduced to specify a sort function
for the keys of any hash.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
%professors{ $a->name cmp $b->name };
%students{ $$students{$b}{GPA} <=> $$students{$a}{GPA} };
is proposed as an extension to specify a "sort order" on the
values returned from the each, keys, and values functions regarding
the associative array.
When the assignment is made, the expression returns the an anonymous
coderef which can be saved and restored to the hash later if needed.
The expression can also be made temporary by use of the C<my> or C<local>
operators.
The side effects of making a large, tied array a sorted large tied
array are possibly dangerous.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
A "sort function" will need to be added into the list of magics
maintained for every associative array.
A set of macros in terms of sort will need to be defined which
replace keys, values, and each functions on sorted arrays
Since the proposed syntax is currently an error, little modification to
the parser will be required: Fatal syntax errors may be filtered for
this instance.
=head1 REFERENCES
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language@perl.org/msg01950.html
