I guess we read the code in different ways. I don't think of the code as a list of operations applied to %h, but as assigning the results of map to %h.

map takes a list and manipulates it. The fact that the input to map is also derived from %h is effectively moot. It could equally well be a completely different hash.

I look at 

%h = map{
    $_, $h{ $_ }
} ( sort{ $a <=> $b } keys %h )[ 0 .. 2 ];

[download]

as: Take the first 3 from a list of sorted keys and feed them to map. Map those keys to key/value pairs and assign them to %h.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algoritm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon

In reply to Re^3: small steps toward Perl literacy, temp vars and parentheses by BrowserUk
in thread small steps toward Perl literacy, temp vars and parentheses by rir

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