From: Dark Ambient <sambient@...>
Date: 2006-07-09T23:09:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Sorting arrays

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On 7/9/06, dblack@wobblini.net <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:

>
> There's no issue of nil being smaller or larger than anything.  The
> first time through your loop, lowest is nil -- which means that the
> item < lowest comparison is never evaluated.


Okay, I sort of see that.

 The next time through,
> lowest is "five", so item < lowest is evaluated.  It's false, so the
> next statement (lowest = item) is not executed.


Don't get this looking at the 'if' statement

if lowest == nil || item < lowest
lowest = item

First confusion is || , this I take to be 'or' ?
Second, if the assignment of 'lowest = item' comes after the 'if'
conditional, how does any 'tem become the lowest. The way I'm reading the
statement (using the array -  mylist = ['five', 'eight', 'one', 'ten',
'nine']) I interpret the second iteration as
if lowest == nil or 'five' < lowest        # lowest is still equal to nil ?
Or could it be that in the 'if' block, the 'lowest = item' is set before the
'if conditons'  are checked ?

Stuart



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