Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 11:19:30 -0400
From: tadmc@augustmail.com (Tad McClellan)
Subject: Re: how to sort array of similar hashes by one of the hash keys?
Message-Id: <slrn9jha02.fvu.tadmc@tadmc26.august.net>

Irfan Baig <irfan@abstractedge.com> wrote:
>I've split data from a flatfile into hashes in an array, @game, all of
>which have keys 'name', 'score' and 'date'.
>
>@game = ();
>for ($i=0; $i<=$#scores; $i++){ 
>	($game[$i]{'name'},$game[$i]{'score'},$game[$i]{'date'}) = split(/,/, $data[$i]);
>}


So each element in @game is a reference to a hash then.


>I'm now trying to sort the array by comparing the values of the 'score' elements
>in each array's hash. Is this possible? I've tried some combinations such
>as:
>
>@sorted_game = sort{ $game[$a]{'score'} <=> $game[$b]{'score'} } @game;
>
>but no luck. Can someone help me out?


You are sorting a list of _references_ to the hashes, so $a and $b
will be hash refs, but you do not deref them.

$a/$b are not small integers suitable for array indexing:

   @sorted_game = sort{ $a->{'score'} <=> $b->{'score'} } @game;


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas