my %topfive; for my $c (keys %code) { my %user; for my $row (@{$code{$c}}) { # Note: this assumes that the userid field # is unique to each user. $user{$$row{userid}}{count}++; $user{$$row{userid}}{name} = $$row{username}; } $topfive{$c} = [(sort { $$b[2] <=> $$a[2] } map { [$_, $user{$_}{name}, $user{$_}{count}] } keys %user)[0 .. 4]]; }