Sort isn't acting like I expect it to and I'm a little confused. I have a hash reference that looks like this:

$sort_line_contents->{element_one}->{element_two}
[download]

I want to reverse sort on element_one (numerically) and then sort normally on element_two. Here is an example of my data set:

$sort_line_contents->{1}->{2} = Item1;
$sort_line_contents->{0}->{3} = Item2;
$sort_line_contents->{1}->{4} = Item3;
$sort_line_contents->{1}->{5} = Item4;
$sort_line_contents->{2}->{6} = Item5;
[download]

I want to take that information and force it into an order like this:
Item5
Item1
Item3
Item4
Item2

My first crack at this was using a sort statement like so:

my @hash_keys2  =   sort { %{$sort_line_contents}->{$b} <=> %{$sort_li
+ne_contents}->{$a} } keys %{$sort_line_contents};
[download]

But this gives me an incorrect order. Instead of giving me an order like this: 2, 1, 1, 1, 0 it gives me something like 0, 2, 1, 1, 1. I could not get this straightened out, so eventually ended up substituting this line:

foreach (reverse sort keys %{$sort_line_contents}) { push(@hash_keys2,
+$_);}
[download]

I'm even more confused because the second sort using the second value works AS EXPECTED:

foreach my $hk (@hash_keys2){

    my @filli =  sort {
                         $sort_line_contents->{$hk}->{$a} <=> $sort_li
+ne_contents->{$hk}->{$b}
              } keys %{$sort_line_contents->{$hk}};

  foreach (@filli){
    #output to other part of program
     }
   }
[download]

My question is, why doesn't the sort on the hash ref give me the expected behaviour? Is there a problem with the way I am expanding my $sort_line_contents reference? I see that it is reading out the correct VALUES, it is just putting them in an unexpected order. I get the same unexpected order with the <=> and the cmp operators???

oakbox

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.