foreach my $id (sort keys %test) { delete $test{13}; } print(scalar keys %test, "\n"); # 2 #### @anon_list = sort keys %test; foreach my $id (@anon_list) { print "$id :: $test{$id}\n"; delete $test{13}; } #### foreach my $id (sort keys %test) { next if not exist $test{$id}; print "$id :: $test{$id}\n"; delete $test{13}; }