NAME
    Comparer - Reusable comparer subroutines

SPECIFICATION VERSION
    0.1

VERSION
    This document describes version 0.1.1 of Comparer (from Perl
    distribution Comparer), released on 2024-01-23.

SYNOPSIS
    Basic:

     use Comparer::naturally;
     my $cmp = Comparer::naturally::gen_comparer;

     my @sorted = sort { $cmp->($a,$b) } ('track1.mp3', 'track10.mp3', 'track2.mp3', 'track1b.mp3', 'track1a.mp3');
     # => ('track1.mp3', 'track1a.mp3', 'track1b.mp3', 'track2.mp3', 'track10.mp3')

    Specifying arguments:

     use Comparer::naturally;
     my $cmp = Comparer::naturally::gen_comparer(reverse => 1);
     my @sorted = sort { $cmp->($a,$b) } ...;

    Specifying comparer on the command-line (for other CLI's):

     % customsort -c naturally ...
     % customsort -c naturally=reverse,1 ...

DESCRIPTION
    EXPERIMENTAL. SPEC MIGHT STILL CHANGE.

Glossary
    A comparer is a subroutine that accepts two items to be compare and
    return a value of either -1/0/1. So in other words, just like Perl's
    "cmp" or "<=>".

    A comparer module is a module under the "Comparer::*" namespace that you
    can use to generate a comparer.

  Writing a Comparer module
     package Comparer::naturally;

     # required. must return a hash (DefHash)
     sub meta {
         return +{
             v => 1,
             args => {
                 reverse => {
                     schema => 'bool*', # Sah schema
                 },
             },
         };
     }

     sub gen_comparer {
         my %args = @_;
         ...
     }

     1;

  Namespace organization
HOMEPAGE
    Please visit the project's homepage at
    <https://metacpan.org/release/Comparer>.

SOURCE
    Source repository is at <https://github.com/perlancar/perl-Comparer>.

SEE ALSO
  Base specifications
    DefHash

    Sah

  Related specifications
    Sorter

    SortKey

  Previous incarnation
    Sort::Sub

    "Sorter", "SortKey", and "Comparer" are meant to eventually supersede
    Sort::Sub. The main improvement over Sort::Sub is the split into three
    kinds of subroutines:

    1. sorter
        A subroutine that accepts a list of items to sort.

        "Sorter::*" modules are meant to generate sorters.

    2. sort key generator
        A subroutine that converts an item to a string/numeric key suitable
        for simple comparison using "eq" or "==" during sorting.

        "SortKey::*" modules are meant to generate sort key generators.

    3. comparer
        A subroutine that compares two items. Can be used in sort() as
        custom sort block.

        "Comparer::*" modules are meant to generate comparers.

        Perl's sort(), as mentioned above, allows us to specify a comparer,
        but oftentimes it's more efficient to sort by key using key
        generator, where the keys are often cached. And sometimes due to
        preprocessing and/or postprocessing it's more suitable to use the
        more generic sorter interface.

    Aside from the above, "Comparer" also makes Sort::Sub's special
    arguments "reverse" and "is_ci" become ordinary arguments, because they
    are not always applicable in all situation, especially "is_ci".

AUTHOR
    perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>

CONTRIBUTING
    To contribute, you can send patches by email/via RT, or send pull
    requests on GitHub.

    Most of the time, you don't need to build the distribution yourself. You
    can simply modify the code, then test via:

     % prove -l

    If you want to build the distribution (e.g. to try to install it locally
    on your system), you can install Dist::Zilla,
    Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR,
    Pod::Weaver::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR, and sometimes one or two
    other Dist::Zilla- and/or Pod::Weaver plugins. Any additional steps
    required beyond that are considered a bug and can be reported to me.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2024 by perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

BUGS
    Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website
    <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Comparer>

    When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch
    to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.