The point isn't that there is a way to sort them.

Of course you can. Just like array indexes are ordered in ascending numeric order, hash keys can be ordered in ascending lexical order.

You don't see people telling arrays that 5 sorts after 4. No, they change the key-value associations instead. You can do exactly the same thing with hashes. The difference is that people don't want to change the key-value associations for hashes.

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

In reply to Re^4: What makes an array sorted and a hash unsorted? by ikegami
in thread 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.