use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my %in_hash = ( jibber => [ {id => 1, score => 3, name => 'foo'}, {id => 5, score => 1, name => 'bar'}, {id => 22, score => 6, name => 'baz'}, ], jabber => [ {id => 3, score => 1, name => 'boo'}, {id => 5, score => 3, name => 'bar'}, {id => 12, score => 2, name => 'zib'}, {id => 22, score => 2, name => 'baz'}, ], ); my %tmp; for my $key (keys %in_hash) { for my $href (@{$in_hash{$key}}) { my $id = $href->{id}; if (exists($tmp{$id})) { $tmp{$id}->{score} += $href->{score}; } else { $tmp{$id} = $href; } $tmp{$id}->{keys}->{$key}++; } } my %out_hash; for my $id (keys %tmp) { my $keys = $tmp{$id}->{keys}; delete $tmp{$id}->{keys}; my $new_key = join(' ', reverse sort keys %$keys); push(@{$out_hash{$new_key}}, $tmp{$id}); } print Dumper \%out_hash; #### C:\tmp>erick.pl $VAR1 = { 'jibber' => [ { 'name' => 'foo', 'score' => 3, 'id' => 1 } ], 'jabber' => [ { 'name' => 'boo', 'score' => 1, 'id' => 3 }, { 'name' => 'zib', 'score' => 2, 'id' => 12 } ], 'jibber jabber' => [ { 'name' => 'baz', 'score' => 8, 'id' => 22 }, { 'name' => 'bar', 'score' => 4, 'id' => 5 } ] };