> are you trying to sort all of the lines into a big mix of lines?
Yes.

> $log.$line or something...
this is almost exactly what my fix was ($log.'|'.$line).

It's the "more work" that I'm interested in. I figure there has to be a way to sort a multidimensional hash at the top level by a middle/bottom level key/value (without populating another hash with all the keys to that level joined as the new key).