This can't be chained at least not easily w/o more transformations in the middle.

Show me an example of one of these mythical chains over a listified hash? (One that makes some sense!)

and your code is quite obfuscated...

Hm. You find that "obfuscated"? I always rated you as one of the more adept perlers.

Besides, isn't a big part of the purpose of subroutines to hide the "difficult stuff", in order to simplify the code that calls it?

though ++ for creative use of each within map.

Thanks. The same method works with hsort to make sorting hashes a breeze:

sub hsort (&\%) {
    my( $code, $href ) = @_;
    sort( $code map[ each %$href ], 1 .. keys %$href );
}

my %orig = (
    cat       => 22,
    dog       => 23,
    category  => 66,
    catalyst  => 77,
    cataclysm => 88,
    dogma     => 89,
    dogstar   => 92,
);

## Oh look! A chain :)
print 'sorted by key: ', map "$_->[0]=>$_->[1] ", hsort{ $a->[0] cmp $
+b->[0] } %orig;
print 'sorted by val: ', map "$_->[0]=>$_->[1] ", hsort{ $a->[1] <=> $
+b->[1] } %orig;

C:\test>hFP.pl
sorted by key: cat=>22 cataclysm=>88 catalyst=>77 category=>66 dog=>23
+ dogma=>89 dogstar=>92
sorted by val: cat=>22 dog=>23 category=>66 catalyst=>77 cataclysm=>88
+ dogma=>89 dogstar=>92
[download]