my %hashName = ( "term1" => 83, "term2" => 20, "term3" => 193 );
my ($max) = sort { $b <=> $a } values %hashName;

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Benchmark qw(timethese cmpthese);

my %hashName = ( "term1" => 83, "term2" => 20, "term3" => 193 );

print "Timings:\n\n";
my $r = timethese(1000000, {
    'orig' => sub {
        my $i = 0;
        my $max = 0;
        foreach (sort sortHash (keys (%hashName))) {
            if ($i == 0) { $max = $hashName{$_}; last }
        } # end-foreach
        
        sub sortHash {
            $hashName{$b} <=> $hashName{$a};
        }
    },
    'new' => sub {
        my ($max) = sort { $b <=> $a } values %hashName;
    },
});

print "\n\nComparison:\n\n";
cmpthese($r);


__END__

Timings:

Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of new, orig...
       new:  2 wallclock secs ( 2.44 usr +  0.00 sys =  2.44 CPU) @ 410340.58/s
(n=1000000)
      orig:  8 wallclock secs ( 8.42 usr +  0.00 sys =  8.42 CPU) @ 118736.64/s
(n=1000000)


Comparison:

         Rate orig  new
orig 118737/s   -- -71%
new  410341/s 246%   --