I am not looking for a way to store the hash in a specific order. In my post, I acknowledged that hash keys do not come out in the order they are created. I was looking for a way to have the output automatically sorted (via some magic such as
provided) into a pre-determined format when it came out un-ordered. Thanks for mentioning Data::Dumper - it made me think of something. I may be able to use it if I decide to stay with a hash and not start over.