confused with distances Perl

They have: 53 posts

Joined: Oct 2005

Hello all,
I have a school assignment in Biology but I seem to be unable to begin...
What I was given is something like the following :

HELIX1: x y z
A 1 -1.115 8.537 7.075
B 2 -2.745 5.280 7.165
C 3 -0.777 3.267 7.329
D 4 1.610 5.225 10.885
E 5 0.296 5.263 10.912

HELIX2:
K 1 -0.696 13.041 22.357
L 2 1.152 11.081 23.082
M 3 2.200 17.590 18.424

What I must do is :
take each atom from each helix (for example atoms A, B, C, D, E from helix1 , atoms K,L,M from helix2)
and calculate the distance from all other atoms of the remaining helices.
An example :
1) Take atom A from helix1
2) Calculate distance with atom K from helix2
3) Calculate distance with atom L from helix2
4) Calculate distance with atom M from helix2

In order to calculate the distance ,for example, between A(helix1) and K(helix2), I use the formula:
distance = (Xa-Xk)^2 + (Ya-Yk)^2 + (Za-Zk)^2

So, what I need to store is :
x,y,z for each atom
then, using the formula above ,I will calculate the distance...
I don't know if I need a hash of arrays, an array of hashes or something more or less complicated...
Any help?

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

How is this exercise related to your homework? We couldn't answer your question if it is your homework.

You've already got all the important points, it seems. The rest are implementation details. Try out different approaches and see which is best. Smiling

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