I went after the easier problem first. Wanting data associated to a column name meant a hash, but hashes aren't ordered. I thought I could use Tie::IxHash and my problems would all go away. Example below. I've used super search, been through the DBI docs, but been unsuccesfu and definitely need some monk wisdom.

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use DBI qw(:sql_types);
use Tie::IxHash;

tie my %results, "Tie::IxHash";

... connect to db ....

my $stmt = qq~SELECT * FROM registrants WHERE registrant_id = ?~;
%results = % { $dbh->selectrow_hashref($stmt, undef, $registrant_id) }
+;
[download]

Using the tie gave me the exact same results as not using it, which lead me to believe that the order dbi stores the hash might be out of my control. An example of the more complicated statement, I'd like to use:

    my $stmt = qq~SELECT * FROM registrants, hotels, cadavers WHERE re
+gistrants.registrant_id = ? AND registrants.registrant_id = hotels.re
+gistrant_id~;
    %results = % { $dbh->selectrow_hashref($stmt, undef, $registrant_i
+d) };
[download]

Has anybody run across this before?