To start off, I would really recommend a RDMS of some kind, there are alot fo very nice Open Source alternatives out there such as MySQL. It would make this whole thing alot easier.

But if you must, then this is how you want to approach this. 


# sort by zip-code 
my @sorted_by_zip_code = sort {
    (split /\|\|/ => $hash{$a})[3] <=> (split /\|\|/ => $hash{$b})[3]
    } keys %hash;

# sort by city alphabetically 
my @sorted_by_city = sort {
    lc((split /\|\|/ => $hash{$a})[1]) cmp lc((split /\|\|/ => $hash{$
+b})[1])
    } keys %hash;

[download]
Just changing the index of the split array to whatever item you want to sort by. Be sure to use the appropriate operator (<=> for numbers and cmp for letters), and if you want true alphabetical sorting you will need to do it case-insensitive so you should lowercase the values you are sorting.

Your results will be an array of keys sorted in the order you desire. You can then use them to extract your values and do whatever you need from there.

-stvn

In reply to Re: Complex hash sorting by stvn
in thread Complex hash sorting by Anonymous Monk

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