Question

I am reading an ordered file for which I must count by-hour, by-minute or by-second occurrences. If requested, I must print times with 0 occurrences (normalized output) or skip them (non-normalized output). The output must obviously be ordered.

I first thought using an array. When the output is non normalized, I am doing roughly the equivalent of:

@array[10] = 100;
@array[10000] = 10000;

And to print the result:

foreach (@array) {
  print if defined;
}

Is there a way to reduce iterations to only elements defined in the array? In the previous example, that would mean doing only two iterations, instead of 10000 as using $#array implies. Then I would also need a way to know the current array index in a loop. Does such a thing exist?

I am thinking more and more to use a hash instead. Using a hash solves my problem and also eliminates the need to convert hh:mm:ss times to index and vice-versa.

Or do you have a better solution to suggest for this simple problem?

Answer 1

Yes, use a hash. You can iterate over the ordered array of the keys of the hash if your keys sort correctly.