Dutch national flag problem: Difference between revisions

-- A local "owner" for the potentially long 'balls' list. Speeds up references to its items and properties.

script o

property colours : {"red", "white", "blue"}

-- Initialise the balls list with at least one instance of each colour — but not in Dutch flag order!

property balls : reverse of my colours

end script

-- Randomly fill the list from the three colours to the required number of balls (min = 3).

-- The task description doesn't say if there should be equal numbers of each colour, but it makes no difference to the solution.

repeat numberOfBalls - 3 times

set end of o's balls to some item of o's colours

end repeat

log o's balls -- Log the pre-sort order.

-- Custom comparer for the sort. Decides whether or not ball 'a' should go after ball 'b'.

script redsThenWhitesThenBlues

on isGreater(a, b)

return ((a is not equal to b) and ((a is "blue") or (b is "red")))

end isGreater

end script

-- Sort items 1 thru -1 of the balls (ie. the whole list) using the above comparer.

tell sorter to sort(o's balls, 1, -1, {comparer:redsThenWhitesThenBlues})

-- Return the sorted list.

return o's balls