NAME List::Helpers::XS - Perl extension to provide some usefull functions with arrays SYNOPSIS use List::Helpers::XS qw/ :shuffle :slice /; my $slice = random_slice(\@list, $size); # returns array reference, @list is partitial shuffled random_slice(\@list, $size); # @list is now truncated and shuffled shuffle(\@list); shuffle(@list); # undef value will be skipped shuffle_multi(\@list1, \@list2, undef, \@list3); # the same for tied arrays tie(@list, "MyPackage"); shuffle(@list); shuffle(\@list); my $slice = random_slice(\@list, $size); # returns array reference DESCRIPTION This module provides some rare but usefull functions to work with arrays. It supports tied arrays. random_slice This method receives the array and the amount of required elements to be shuffled, shuffles array's elements and returns the array reference to the new arrays with "num" elements from original one. If "num" is equal or higher than amount of elements in array, then it won't do any work. It doesn't shuffle the whole array, it shuffles only "num" elements and returns only them. So, if you need to shuffle and get back only a part of array, then this method can be faster than others approaches. Be aware that the original array will be shuffled too, but it won't be sliced. In void context the original list will be truncated and shuffled. shuflle Shuffles the provided array. Doesn't return anything. shuffle_multi Shuffles multiple arrays. Each array must be passed as array reference. All undefined arrays will be skipped. This method will allow you to save some time by getting rid of extra calls. You can pass so many arguments as Perl stack allows. Benchmarks Benchmarks of "random_slice" method in comparison with "List::MoreUtils::samples" and "List::Util::sample" showed that current version of "random_slice" is very similar to the first ones in some cases. But in case of huge amount of iterations it starts to slow down due to some performance degradation. So, the usage of "List::MoreUtils::samples" (it's the fastest now) and "List::Util::sample" is more preferable. I'll keep "random_slice" for backward compatibility. The benchmark results for "shuffle" method shuffle_huge_array List::Helpers::XS::shuffle shuffle_huge_array -- -5% List::Helpers::XS::shuffle 5% -- shuffle_array List::Helpers::XS::shuffle shuffle_array -- -4% List::Helpers::XS::shuffle 4% -- List::Util::shuffle List::Helpers::XS::shuffle List::Util::shuffle -- -63% List::Helpers::XS::shuffle 170% -- AUTHOR Chernenko Dmitriy, cdn@cpan.org COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (C) 2021 by Dmitriy This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.26.1 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.