Heap::Elem::Ref(3pm)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				      Heap::Elem::Ref(3pm)

NAME

       Heap::Elem::Ref - Object Reference Heap Elements

SYNOPSIS

	 use Heap::Elem::Ref( RefElem );
	 use Heap::Fibonacci;

	 my $heap = Heap::Fibonacci->new;
	 my $elem;

	 foreach $i ( 1..100 ) {
	     $obj = myObject->new( $i );
	     $elem = RefElem( $obj );
	     $heap->add( $elem );
	 }

	 while( defined( $elem = $heap->extract_top ) ) {
	     # assume that myObject object have a method I<printable>
	     print "Smallest is ", $elem->val->printable, "
";
	 }

DESCRIPTION

       Heap::Elem::Ref is used to wrap object reference values into an element that can be managed on a heap.  Each referenced object must have a
       method cmp which can compare itself with any of the other objects that have references on the same heap.  These comparisons must be consis-
       tant with normal arithmetic.  The top of the heap will have the smallest (according to cmp) element still remaining.  (See
       Heap::Elem::RefRev if you want the heap to always return the largest element.)

       The details of the Elem interface are described in Heap::Elem.

       The details of using a Heap interface are described in Heap.

AUTHOR

       John Macdonald, john@perlwolf.com

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 1998-2007, O'Reilly & Associates.

       This code is distributed under the same copyright terms as perl itself.

SEE ALSO

       Heap(3), Heap::Elem(3), Heap::Elem::RefRev(3).

perl v5.8.8							    2007-10-23						      Heap::Elem::Ref(3pm)