merlyn,
I am likely wrong, but I don't see mdog's code being a reinvention of Sort::Fields. The code is designed to arbitrarily sort the keys of a multi-dimensional hash based off user supplied key names. It also sorts ascending or descending based off user input and auto-magically detects numerical versus ASCIIBetical sorting.

What mdog has provided is not very flexible. It assumes a specific structure. I was going to try and make it more generic, but gave up after only duplicating the fuctionality. Why you might ask - besides getting bored, look at the atrocity:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use Tie::Hash::Sorted;
use Scalar::Util 'looks_like_number';

my @keys = qw(name number);

tie my %hash, 'Tie::Hash::Sorted';
@{ $hash{$_} }{ @keys }       = ($_, '7.7') for qw(Me Chuck Zed);
@{ $hash{Wife} }{ @keys }     = qw(Wife 7.6);
@{ $hash{Dad} }{ @keys }      = qw(Dad 53);
@{ $hash{Michael} }{ @keys }  = qw(Michael 24);

sub Build_Sort {
    my $hash = shift;
    my (@col , @ord);
    $_ % 2 ? (push @ord , $_[$_]) : (push @col , $_[$_]) for 0 .. $#_;
    my $sort_it = sub {
        for ( 0 .. $#col ) {
            if ( $ord[$_] eq 'dsc' ) {
                if ( looks_like_number( $hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} ) && loo
+ks_like_number( $hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} ) ) {
                    next if ($hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} <=> $hash->{$a}{$co
+l[$_]}) == 0; 
                    return   $hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} <=> $hash->{$a}{$co
+l[$_]};
                }
                else {
                    next if ($hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} cmp $hash->{$a}{$co
+l[$_]}) == 0; 
                    return   $hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} cmp $hash->{$a}{$co
+l[$_]};
                }
            }
            else {
                if ( looks_like_number( $hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} ) && loo
+ks_like_number( $hash->{$b}{$col[$_]} ) ) {
                    next if ($hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} <=> $hash->{$b}{$co
+l[$_]}) == 0; 
                    return   $hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} <=> $hash->{$b}{$co
+l[$_]};
                }
                else {
                    next if ($hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} cmp $hash->{$b}{$co
+l[$_]}) == 0; 
                    return   $hash->{$a}{$col[$_]} cmp $hash->{$b}{$co
+l[$_]};
                }
            }
        }
    };
    return sub {
        my $h = shift;
        [ sort $sort_it keys %$h ];
    };
}
tied( %hash )->Sort_Routine( Build_Sort(\%hash, number => 'dsc', name 
+=> 'asc') ); 
print "$hash{$_}{name}\t$hash{$_}{number}\n" for keys %hash;
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