Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!jade!ucbvax!ARIZONA.EDU!gudeman
From: gudeman@ARIZONA.EDU ("David Gudeman")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: complicated sorts
Message-ID: <8801140005.AA18177@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 88 00:05:33 GMT
References: <8801132040.AA07880@megaron.arizona.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 17


   From: ihnp4!ihuxy!nowlin

   ...How could I pass a list of sorting keys that consist of strings
   corresponding to the labels used to reference the fields in a
   record instead of numeric indexes for the record that is being
   sorted to the recsort() procedure?  If you didn't follow that
   question here is an example of what I mean.  Given the program that
   follows, If I want to sort the password file by the uid field I
   have to invoke the program with "3" as the sorting key.  I'd like
   to be able to invoke it with "uid" as the sorting key.

You can't reference records by string name anyway, so getting a string
corresponding to a field name wouldn't do you any good.  You probably
should be using tables if you want to do this.  Table references are a
little uglier than record references, e.g.: foo["name"] vs. foo.name,
but tables are a lot more flexible.