looking for a smart approach to "sort" an array

[Mike Bonner]

Wasn't my post originally, but the gist of the problem was, how does one
get data back out of an array based on a custom sorted list of words that
are used as main array key back out of the array in the desired sequence.

IE there is a list of words in a field.  And an array that has extra
information relating to each word keyed by array[theWord]

To me, the simplest answer is to keep track of the word list and iterate
through it to access each key of the array in the desired sequence.


On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 7:30 AM, Quentin Long via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> sez "Tiemo Hollmann TB" <toolbook at kestner.de>:
> To: "LiveCode User Liste senden" <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>
> > I have a list field of words and a correspondent array with the words of
> the
> > field as the keys plus some data per key. I can store the array in a
> file,
> > read it later from file and rebuild the list of words from the keys of
> the
> > array. Up to now, I had this list of words alphabetically sorted. So it
> was
> > easy, when reloading the array to sort the list always alphabetically to
> > refresh the visible list in the field.
> >
> > The user can also create a custom sequence of the words in the field by
> drag
> > and drop the lines in individual order. Now I am looking for a smart
> > approach to keep the same sort order in the correspondent array. I need
> the
> > custom sort order of the words in case I reload the array later from
> file to
> > get the same sequence of words as the user has sorted them, after
> extracting
> > the words from the array. The key of the array has to keep the words from
> > the list for accessing the data in the array.
> >
> > As far as I see it, I have to add an additional item to the array data,
> > storing the sort sequence of the keys, while the user creates his custom
> > sequence of the words in the list field and keeping this number always
> > synchronous to the line number of the fields list. So I could use this
> "sort
> > sequence number" from the array to rebuild the same sort of the words
> when
> > extracting the words from the array.
> >
> > Would this be the best approach to keep the sort sequence of the words
> > stored with the array, or do you see an easier more straight forward
> > approach to keep the array "synchronous sorted" which I don't see right
> now?
> Use the alphabetically-sorted word-list as the keys of an array.
>
> -- MySortedList is a return-delimited list, one word per line, sorted
> alphabetically
> -- UserSortedWordList is the return-delimited list of words sorted into
> the user's preferred order
> put "" into WordArray
> repeat for each line LL in MySortedList
>   put lineOffset (LL,UserSortedWordList) into WordArray[LL]
> next repeat
>
> I'm not entirely sure that lineOffset (or even wordOffset) are the right
> thing to do here; there's every danger of encountering a Scunthorpe
> problem, such as if "pen" and "open" are both words in the list, or
> "squire" and "ire", etc etc. Hmm… maybe go with comma-delimited lists, and
> something along the lines of "put wordOffset (comma & LL & comma, comma &
> UserSortedWordList & comma) into WordArray[LL]" ?
>
> If this is what Mike Bonner had in mind, chalk it up to my inability to
> comprehend what he wrote.
>
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>
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