Tie::CacheHash version 0.50 (Maintains sorted lists of its top entries.) Copyright 1999 by Jamie McCarthy . This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. INTRODUCTION A hash tied with Tie::CacheHash keeps a sorted list of its top entries. You define the sort order. You also tell it how many entries it should keep track of, minimum and maximum, and the code will do its best to keep memory and CPU usage to a minimum within your guidelines. If your program stores 100,000 pieces of data and frequently would like to know what the 500 oldest items are (maybe to purge them), this module is a good way to maintain that information, transparently, without having to call "sort" on a 100,000 item array. See the POD documentation for complete details, features, and usage. Consider this beta software until its version number reaches 1.0. while (beta) { "It works for me but may not for you." "I'll try not to change its interface but no guarantees." "The documentation may not be totally accurate." } INSTALLATION Follow the standard installation procedure for Perl modules, which is to type the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install You'll probably need to do the last as root. If instead you wish to install the module by hand, simply copy it into a directory named Tie in your Perl library directory. CONTACTING ME Please send any comments, bug reports, feature requests, or patches to jamie@mccarthy.org.