use warnings; use strict;

use List::Util qw[ max ];

my %p =
  ( 'a' => 1
  , 'm l n o p q' => 20
  , 'x y z' => 321
  );

my $max = max map { length $_ } keys %p;
my $format = "%-${max}s  %d\n\n";

my $out = '';
for ( sort keys %p )
{
  $out .= sprintf $format , $_ , $p{ $_ }
}
print $out;
[download]

Main thing is to find out the maximum length of each column that may affect the format (alignment if you like), to be used in sprintf format specification. In case numbers should be aligned with right margin ...

use warnings; use strict;

use List::Util qw[ max ];

my %p =
  ( 'a' => 1
  , 'm l n o p q' => 20
  , 'x y z' => 321
  );

my $name = max map { length $_ } keys %p;
my $number = max map { length $_ } values %p;

my $format = "%-${name}s  %${number}d\n\n";

my $out = '';
for ( sort keys %p )
{
  $out .= sprintf $format , $_ , $p{ $_ }
}
print $out;
[download]

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.