17db96d56Sopenharmony_ciPath: cwi.nl!sun4nl!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!convex!usenet 27db96d56Sopenharmony_ciFrom: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) 37db96d56Sopenharmony_ciNewsgroups: comp.lang.perl 47db96d56Sopenharmony_ciSubject: Re: The problems of Perl (Re: Question (silly?)) 57db96d56Sopenharmony_ciMessage-ID: <1992Jan17.053115.4220@convex.com> 67db96d56Sopenharmony_ciDate: 17 Jan 92 05:31:15 GMT 77db96d56Sopenharmony_ciReferences: <17458@ector.cs.purdue.edu> <1992Jan16.165347.25583@cherokee.uswest.com> <=#Hues+4@cs.psu.edu> 87db96d56Sopenharmony_ciSender: usenet@convex.com (news access account) 97db96d56Sopenharmony_ciReply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) 107db96d56Sopenharmony_ciOrganization: CONVEX Realtime Development, Colorado Springs, CO 117db96d56Sopenharmony_ciLines: 83 127db96d56Sopenharmony_ciNntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com 137db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 147db96d56Sopenharmony_ciFrom the keyboard of flee@cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee): 157db96d56Sopenharmony_ci:And Perl is definitely awkward with data types. I haven't yet found a 167db96d56Sopenharmony_ci:pleasant way of shoving non-trivial data types into Perl's grammar. 177db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 187db96d56Sopenharmony_ciYes, it's pretty awful at that, alright. Sometimes I write perl programs 197db96d56Sopenharmony_cithat need them, and sometimes it just takes a little creativity. But 207db96d56Sopenharmony_cisometimes it's not worth it. I actually wrote a C program the other day 217db96d56Sopenharmony_ci(gasp) because I didn't want to deal with a game matrix with six links per node. 227db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 237db96d56Sopenharmony_ci:Here's a very simple problem that's tricky to express in Perl: process 247db96d56Sopenharmony_ci:the output of "du" to produce output that's indented to reflect the 257db96d56Sopenharmony_ci:tree structure, and with each subtree sorted by size. Something like: 267db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: 434 /etc 277db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 344 . 287db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 50 install 297db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 35 uucp 307db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 3 nserve 317db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | | 2 . 327db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | | 1 auth.info 337db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 1 sm 347db96d56Sopenharmony_ci: | 1 sm.bak 357db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 367db96d56Sopenharmony_ciAt first I thought I could just keep one local list around 377db96d56Sopenharmony_ciat once, but this seems inherently recursive. Which means 387db96d56Sopenharmony_ciI need an real recursive data structure. Maybe you could 397db96d56Sopenharmony_cido it with one of the %assoc arrays Larry uses in the begat 407db96d56Sopenharmony_ciprograms, but I broke down and got dirty. I think the hardest 417db96d56Sopenharmony_cipart was matching Felix's desired output exactly. It's not 427db96d56Sopenharmony_ciblazingly fast: I should probably inline the &childof routine, 437db96d56Sopenharmony_cibut it *was* faster to write than I could have written the 447db96d56Sopenharmony_ciequivalent C program. 457db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 467db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 477db96d56Sopenharmony_ci--tom 487db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 497db96d56Sopenharmony_ci-- 507db96d56Sopenharmony_ci"GUIs normally make it simple to accomplish simple actions and impossible 517db96d56Sopenharmony_cito accomplish complex actions." --Doug Gwyn (22/Jun/91 in comp.unix.wizards) 527db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 537db96d56Sopenharmony_ci Tom Christiansen tchrist@convex.com convex!tchrist 547db96d56Sopenharmony_ci 55