I just wanted to put my spit in the pot too. So you know...

%hash = sort %hash;
[download]

is valid under strict but unlikely to do anything usefull. You get the hash flattened into a list, the list get's sorted, and then assigned to hash. A list assigned to a hash uses consecutive pairs and key/value pairs. I wrote a quick bit of code.

use strict;
use warnings;

my %hash = (
        thing1 => 'one thing',
        thing2 => 'leads to another',
        All    => 'is great and glorious',
    );

print "$_ => $hash{$_}\n" for keys %hash;

%hash = sort %hash;

print "\n";
print "$_ => $hash{$_}\n" for keys %hash;
[download]

Output is

thing2 => leads to another
All => is great and glorious
thing1 => one thing

leads to another => one thing
thing1 => thing2
All => is great and glorious
[download]

I can't think of a reason you would want to do this. I just wanted to throw it into this thread since it is kinda (but not really) used in the initial code.

Goip,
Ira,

"So... What do all these little arrows mean?"
~unknown