NAME

Tie::Array::Sorted - An array which is kept sorted

SYNOPSIS

        use Tie::Array::Sorted;
        tie @a, "Tie::Array::Sorted", sub { $_[0] <=> $_[1] };
        push @a, 10, 4, 7, 3, 4;
        print "@a"; # "3 4 4 7 10"

DESCRIPTION

This presents an ordinary array, but is kept sorted. All pushes and unshifts cause the elements in question to be inserted in the appropriate location to maintain order.

Direct stores ("$a[10] = "wibble"") effectively splice out the original value and insert the new element. It's not clear why you'd want to use direct stores like that, but this module does the right thing if you do.

If you don't like the ordinary lexical comparator, you can provide your own; it should compare the two elements it is given. For instance, a numeric comparator would look like this:

        tie @a, "Tie::Array::Sorted", sub { $_[0] <=> $_[1] }

Whereas to compare a list of files by their sizes, you'd so something like:

        tie @a, "Tie::Array::Sorted", sub { -s $_[0] <=> -s $_[1] }

LAZY SORTING

If you do more stores than fetches, you may find Tie::Array::Sorted::Lazy more efficient.

AUTHOR

Original author: Simon Cozens

Current maintainer: Tony Bowden

BUGS and QUERIES

Please direct all correspondence regarding this module to: bug-Tie-Array-Sorted@rt.cpan.org

This module was originall written as part of the Plucene project. However, as Plucene no longer uses this, it is effectively unmaintained.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

  Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Simon Cozens and Tony Bowden.
  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
  the terms of the GNU General Public License; either version 2 of the License,
  or (at your option) any later version.
  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
  ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
  FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.