But this could be solved with separate rules for = , =~ and => and/or "sections separations".

please note how this works

my $h_periods =
  {
    Mercury => { orbital => 0.24,  rotation => 58.64 },
    Venus   => { orbital => 0.62,  rotation => -243.02 },
    Earth   => { orbital => 1.00,  rotation => 1.00 },
    Mars    => { orbital => 1.88,  rotation => 1.03 },
    Jupiter => { orbital => 11.86, rotation => 0.41 },
    Saturn  => { orbital => 29.46, rotation => 0.43 },
    Uranus  => { orbital => 84.01, rotation => -0.72 },
    Neptune => { orbital => 164.8, rotation => 0.67 },
};
[download]

That's because { is a section separator while ( is not

   `separate'  Each rule can define its own section separator, which
           describes how to identify the separation of "sections"
           within the region to be aligned.  Setting the `separate'
           attribute overrides the value of `align-region-separate'
           (see the documentation of that variable for possible
           values), and any separation argument passed to `align'.
[download]

using M-x customize-group RET align RET will facilitate customizing (it provides a textual UI for lisp data)

the rule in question in align-rules-list is

 Alignment rule:
            Title: perl-assignment
            Required attributes:
            Regexp:
            (Regular expression to match)
            Choice: Value Menu Regexp: [^=!^&*-+<>/|     
]\(\s-*\)=[~>]?\(\s-*\)\([^>=     
]\|$\)
            Optional attributes:
            INS DEL Choice: Value Menu Paren group:
                        (Parenthesis group to use)
                        Choice: Value Menu Repeat:
                        INS DEL Integer: 1
                        INS DEL Integer: 2
                        INS
            INS DEL Choice: Value Menu Modes:
                        (Modes where this rule applies)
                        Lisp expression: align-perl-modes
            INS DEL Choice: Value Menu To Tab Stop:
                        (Should rule align to tab stops)
                        Boolean: Toggle  off (nil)
            INS
[download]

this [~>]? part should be deleted or replaced.

(BTW: not sure what the -* is intended to do...)

> BTW: not sure what the -* is intended to do...

\s- is whitespace, asterisk is the same as in Perl. Emacs uses \sC where C is a character class, i.e. \sw corresponds to \w , etc.

($q=q:Sq=~/;[c](.)(.)/;chr(-||-|5+lengthSq)`"S|oS2"`map{chr |+ord
}map{substrSq`S_+|`|}3E|-|`7**2-3:)=~y+S|`+$1,++print+eval$q,q,a,
[download]

So task number one would be to separate these cases.

Secondly we need to define region separators.

as a demo: resetting the align-region-separate to handle parentheses helped

(snippet from customize: Align Region Separate: Value Menu Regexp defines section boundaries: [][{}])

to format

$a = {
    bla => 1,
    trax => [
        bla2 => {
            sauh1 => 1666,
            3 => 2,
        },
    ],
    #
    bla => 1,
    trallxa => 2,
};
[download]

to this, hence handling different levels accordingly

$a = {
    bla  => 1,
    trax => [
        bla2 => {
            sauh1 => 1666,
            3     => 2,
        },
    ],
    # new section
    bla     => 1,
    trallxa => 2,
};
[download]

but this doesn't help with this because the separators will be inside each line

my $h_periods = {
    Mercury => { orbital => 0.24, rotation => 58.64 },
    Venus => { orbal => 0.62, rotation => -243.02 },
    Earth => { orbital => 1.00, rotation => 1.00 },
    Mars => { orbital => 1.88, rotation => 1.03 },
    Jupiter => { orbital => 11.86, rotation => 0.41 },
    Saturn => { orbital => 29.46, rotation => 0.43 },
    Uranus => { orbital => 84.01, rotation => -0.72 },
    Neptune => { orbital => 164.8, rotation => 0.67 },
};
[download]

The only way to solve this is to use indentation to distinguish groups.

According to the docs it's possible to use a function call back instead of a regex, but documentation is sparse.

I wanted to document my findings before getting lost in other projects ... ;-)

Here a proof of concept, still w/o using the information from indentation

This is self contained dual code!

Place the cursor behind the last lisp parenthesis and type C-x C-e and the fat commas will be aligned.

<Reveal this spoiler or all in this thread>

The result is already almost as good as perltidy just way faster.

It's so fast that it could be bound to each return or semicolon key event to align the current statement

$a = {
    bla  => 1,
    trax => [                           #comment
        bla2 => {                       #comment
            sauh1 => 1666,
            3     => 2,
        },
    ],

    bla      => 1,
    _periods => 2
};

my $h_periodsxxxxxxxxx = {
    Mercury => { orbital => 0.24, rotation  => 58.64 },
    Venus   => { orbal   => 0.62, rotation  => -243.02 },
    Earth   => { orbital => 1.00, rotation  => 1.00 },
    Mars    => { orbital => 1.88, rotation  => 1.03 },
    Jupiter => { orbital => 11.86, rotation => 0.41 },
    Saturn  => { orbital => 29.46, rotation => 0.43 },
    Uranus  => { orbital => 84.01, rotation => -0.72 },
    Neptune => { orbital => 164.8, rotation => 0.67 },
};
[download]

you can play around with the lisp code to improve the result.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice}