[QUIZ] Perl 'Medium' Quiz of the Week #2005-05-06 - Ranges' Lookup

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Well, the previous quiz did not seem to be very popular. Even I started 
writing it, and then abandoned. I also reached the conclusion that I'd be 
better off adapting Template Toolkit or whatever for this.

In any case here's a fresh new quiz inspired by a question someone asked on 
the IRC. (Freenode #perl's channel today)

You are given a large number of ranges (A[i],B[i]) where B[i] > A[i] for every 
i, and A[i] and B[i] are real. The ranges are not supplied in any particular 
order. You are then given a sequence of real numbers X[0], X[1], X[2] one by 
one. For each number, you have to determine whether it falls inside at least 
one of the ranges. 

For bonus points, you need to supply the user with a set of the indices of 
matching ranges.

Phrasing it Perlishly:

Write the following functions:

1. my $handle = prepare_ranges_handle($array_ref);

$array_ref is an array ref of array refs each containing two elements, being 
the numbers of the ranges.

It returns $handle, which is a reference used for further querying.

2. my $ret = lookup_ranges($handle, $x);

Looks up $x in the ranges which were input to $handle.

$ret is a hash ref that should contain a field 'verdict' that is a boolean 
specifying if any of the ranges contain $x. It may also contain 'match_set' 
which points to a reference to a hash whose keys are the indexes of the 
matching ranges.

Have fun!

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

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