use strict; my $names = " John 20, Bill 34, Jane 28, Wall 18, Tom 19"; print $names,"\n"; my %hash_list = sort(split (/,/, $names)); print %hash_list,"\n"; my @keys = sort { $hash_list{$a} cmp $hash_list{$b} } keys %hash_list; print %hash_list, "\n"; print @keys, "\n";