All right, I'll jump in. I'm not exactly a newbie, but I'm also not an 'expert' (fill in your own opinion on what an 'expert' is).

So without further ado, this is what I ended up with:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
%couples = (
    Fred=>"Wilma",
    Barney=>"Betty",
    George=>"Jane",
    Homer=>"Marge",
    Peter=>"Lois"
);
print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n" for (sort keys %couples);

[download]


Looking at just the important line, I started with:
foreach $key (sort keys %couples) {print "$key is married to $couples{
+$key}\n"};

[download]
Hmm, exactly 80 characters. But wait, I can use the default variable ('$_') rather than creating my own, so I'm now down to 71 characters.
foreach (sort keys %couples) {print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n"}
+;

[download]
Ahh, there's more. 'foreach' can be written as 'for' taking me done to 67 characters:
for (sort keys %couples) {print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n"};

[download]
Not quite - I can get rid of those pesky brackets by reversing the 'for' and 'print' statements, reducing it down to 65 characters:
print "$_ is married to $couples{$_}\n" for (sort keys %couples);

[download]

And that's as far as I've gotten. I've noticed that my solution got more 'perlish' (albeit not much) as I went along, so I was hoping that some of our more experienced monks would contribute as well - and notes as to how you got there are most welcome. Most Perl golf I see is from a realm I'm not familiar with, so a map to that wonderful place would be appreciated greatly.

Pat

P.S. Viewng my post in VIM with syntax checking on leads to some strange colored text...

In reply to Re: perl puzzle - cartoon couple registry (beginner, semi-golf) by BlueBlazerRegular
in thread perl puzzle - cartoon couple registry (beginner, semi-golf) by boo_radley

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