Tree::Simple::Visitor::Sort - A Visitor for sorting a Tree::Simple object heirarchy

  use Tree::Simple::Visitor::Sort;

  # create a visitor object
  my $visitor = Tree::Simple::Visitor::Sort->new();

  $tree->accept($visitor);
  # the tree is now sorted ascii-betically

  # set the sort function to 
  # use a numeric comparison
  $visitor->setSortFunction($visitor->NUMERIC);

  $tree->accept($visitor);
  # the tree is now sorted numerically

  # set a custom sort function
  $visitor->setSortFunction(sub {
        my ($left, $right) = @_;
        lc($left->getNodeValue()->{name}) cmp lc($right->getNodeValue()->{name});
  });

  $tree->accept($visitor);
  # the tree's node are now sorted appropriately

This implements a recursive multi-level sort of a Tree::Simple heirarchy. I think this deserves some more explaination, and the best way to do that is visually.

Given the tree:

    1
        1.3
        1.2
            1.2.2
            1.2.1
        1.1
    4
        4.1
    2
        2.1
    3
        3.3
        3.2
        3.1

A normal sort would produce the following tree:

    1
        1.1
        1.2
            1.2.1
            1.2.2
        1.3
    2
        2.1
    3
        3.1
        3.2
        3.3
    4
        4.1

A sort using the built-in REVERSE sort function would produce the following tree:

    4
        4.1         
    3
        3.3
        3.2
        3.1
    2
        2.1
    1
        1.3
        1.2
            1.2.2
            1.2.1
        1.1

As you can see, no node is moved up or down from it's current depth, but sorted with it's siblings. Flexible customized sorting is possible within this framework, however, this cannot be used for tree-balancing or anything as complex as that.

new

There are no arguments to the constructor the object will be in its default state. You can use the CWsetNodeFilter and CWsetSortFunction methods to customize its behavior.

includeTrunk ($boolean)

Based upon the value of CW$boolean, this will tell the visitor to include the trunk of the tree in the sort as well.

setNodeFilter ($filter_function)

This method accepts a CODE reference as it's CW$filter_function argument and throws an exception if it is not a code reference. This code reference is used to filter the tree nodes as they are sorted. This can be used to gather specific information from a more complex tree node. The filter function should accept a single argument, which is the current Tree::Simple object.

setSortFunction ($sort_function)

This method accepts a CODE reference as it's CW$sort_function argument and throws an exception if it is not a code reference. The CW$sort_function is used by perl's builtin CWsort routine to sort each level of the tree. The CW$sort_function is passed two Tree::Simple objects, and must return 1 (greater than), 0 (equal to) or -1 (less than). The sort function will override and bypass any node filters which have been applied (see CWsetNodeFilter method above), they cannot be used together. Several pre-built sort functions are provided. All of these functions assume that calling CWgetNodeValue on the Tree::Simple object will return a suitable sortable value.

REVERSE

This is the reverse of the normal sort using CWcmp.

NUMERIC

This uses the numeric comparison operator CW<=> to sort.

REVERSE_NUMERIC

The reverse of the above.

ALPHABETICAL

This lowercases the node value before using CWcmp to sort. This results in a true alphabetical sorting.

REVERSE_ALPHABETICAL

The reverse of the above. If you need to implement one of these sorting routines, but need special handling of your Tree::Simple objects (such as would be done with a node filter), I suggest you read the source code and copy and modify your own sort routine. If it is requested enough I will provide this feature in future versions, but for now I am not sure there is a large need.

visit ($tree)

This is the method that is used by Tree::Simple's CWaccept method. It can also be used on its own, it requires the CW$tree argument to be a Tree::Simple object (or derived from a Tree::Simple object), and will throw and exception otherwise. It should be noted that this is a destructive action, since the sort happens in place and does not produce a copy of the tree.

None that I am aware of. Of course, if you find a bug, let me know, and I will be sure to fix it.

See the CODE COVERAGE section in Tree::Simple::VisitorFactory for more inforamtion.

These Visitor classes are all subclasses of Tree::Simple::Visitor, which can be found in the Tree::Simple module, you should refer to that module for more information.

Thanks to Vitor Mori for the idea and much of the code for this Visitor.

Vitor Mori, <vvvv767@hotmail.com>

stevan little, <stevan@iinteractive.com>

Copyright 2004 by Vitor Mori & Infinity Interactive, Inc.

<http://www.iinteractive.com>

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.