Here's the scenario:
I receive text files on a regular basis. One file for each country named by XX.txt where 'XX' is the two letter country code. The complete list of the countries I have files for changes regularly. I need an <option> list that corresponds to the available countries.

I have a hash of all the country codes and the country names
A bit of that hash:

%country_names = (
     "AF" => "Afghanistan",
     "AX" => "Aland Islands",
     "AL" => "Albania",
     "DZ" => "Algeria",
     "AS" => "American Samoa",
     "AD" => "Andorra",
     "AO" => "Angola",
     "AI" => "Anguilla",
     "AQ" => "Antarctica",
     "AG" => "Antigua And Barbuda",
     "AR" => "Argentina",
     "AM" => "Armenia",
     "AW" => "Aruba",
     "AU" => "Australia",
     "AT" => "Austria",
     "AZ" => "Azerbaijan",
     "BS" => "Bahamas",
     "BH" => "Bahrain",
     "BD" => "Bangladesh",
     "BB" => "Barbados",
);

[download]

ect...

What I want to do is this:

opendir(ODIR, "$sr_data/f") || die ("Unable to open directory $sr_data
+/f");
        @intl_files = grep !/^\./, readdir ODIR; #this line gets rid o
+f . and ..
        closedir ODIR;        
        open(FILE,">$includes_codes_dir/sc_intl_dd.txt"); 
          foreach $file (sort @intl_files) { 
                $file =~ s/\.\w+$//; #remove the extension
              print FILE "<option value=\"$file\">$country_names{$file
+}</option>\n"; 
          }
          close(FILE);

[download]

Which does build me an option list, but the problem is that the option items are in alphabetical order based on the country codes, not the country names. I know it has to do with ordering somewhere along the line, but I'm just having trouble seeing the logic.

Make any sense?
Thanks.

I learn more and more about less and less until eventually I know everything about nothing.

In reply to hash sorting/alphabetization issue : country postal codes by hmbscully

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