It always bothers me when someone says hash are unsorted.

An array is sorted because it can return its values in order of ascending keys (indexes). But a hash can do the same thing. In fact, hashes can do everything an array can do with no extra state information. (It's just more expensive.)

That means that hashes are just as sorted as arrays in theory.

The difference is how they are used in practice. Array keys (indexes) only convey order, while hash keys are part of the true value of the hash element. Therefore, array values can be reordered, but hash values can't be reordered.

That hashes are unsorted isn't a property of hashes so much as of the way we use them.

</ramblings>

In reply to What makes an array sorted and a hash unsorted? by ikegami

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.