Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am having problems sorting a two dimentional hash. I have checked the prerequisite help sites (the stuff here at perlmonks.org) and perldsc, but they don't seem to work for my situation.

Normally I'd chug away at it untill I got it to work, but I needed it to work yesterday ... : )

So without further ado, here is the offending code, printing unsorted: 

foreach $auth (keys %hash) {
   print FILE "$hash{$auth}{fname} $hash{$auth}{lname}: $hash{$auth}{c
+ount}\n";
}

[download]
my data structure is set up as follows:
$hash{author} has three fields, fname (first name), lname (last name), and count (number of occruences in a file)

I would like to sort the hash by the count field.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-- steve

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: problems sorting hashes of hashes
by btrott (Parson) on Jun 30, 2000 at 22:08 UTC
    Here you go: 
        for my $auth (sort { $hash{$b}{count} <=> $hash{$a}{count} } keys 
+%hash) {
        print FILE "$hash{$auth}{fname} $hash{$auth}{lname}: $hash{$au
+th}{count}\n";
    }

    [download]
    This will sort by count in reverse numerical order, from biggest count to smallest. If you want it the other way round, swap the $a and $b.
[reply]
[d/l]
      thank you!

      looking at your code, it makes perfect sense

      you wouldn't believe the stuff i was tryin to do before .. : )

      -- steve

[reply]

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