Sort an array based on a substring in the array element

Question

Is there a way that I can sort an array based on a sub-string of the array element. For example, lets say I have the following array:

@myArray = qw("AAA|111|bbb" "CCC|333|ddd" "EEE|444|fff" "GGG|222|hhh");

I want to sort this array based on the sub-string starting at position 4 (zero-based) for a length of 3 (in the first array element in my example, that would be "111").

The length of each array element will always be the same for all elements and the sub-string I want to sort on will always be in the same position for the same length in the array element.

This is what my sorted output would look like:

AAA|111|bbb

GGG|222|hhh

CCC|333|ddd

EEE|444|fff

Also, while I am showing numbers as the sub-string in my example, it could be non-number values in there too. So the sort would have to work for non-numbers too.

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-26 21:27:57Z

1

sort can take the first parameter that is a code block that compares two elements:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use feature qw{ say };

my @myArray = qw( AAA|111|bbb CCC|333|ddd EEE|444|fff GGG|222|hhh );


say for sort { substr($a, 4, 3) cmp substr($b, 4, 3) } @myArray;

Comments

ikegami · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-27 02:52:05Z

0

What's the use of pipes if this is a record of fixed-length fields?

If you were to treat the input as pipe-separated values, then your code would become

say for sort { ( split /\|/, $a )[1] <=> ( split /\|/, $b )[1] } @myArray;

and

use Sort::Key qw( ikeysort );

say for ikeysort { ( split /\|/ )[1] } @myArray;

[This is not meant to be a complete answer, but an extension of choroba's.]

edited Mar 27, 2019 at 2:52

answered Mar 27, 2019 at 0:03

ikegami

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2 Comments

Angelo Over a year ago

Thanks Choroba, I will try out your code and get back to you. ikegami, I didn't intend for the array element to resemble a fixed-length record but you are right, it is now and I can remove the pipes. I was so involved in writing my code I didn't realize what had transpired. Thanks for the heads-up. Angelo

ikegami Over a year ago

You'll find pack "a3 a3 a3" and unpack "a3 a3 a3" useful

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