my %results = map { $_ => 1 if ( $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_watermark ) } @all_numbers;

will get all of the matching numbers

Not if any of the numbers are duplicates because you are storing them in hash keys which will remove duplicates.

Why not just:

my @results = grep $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_watermark, @all_n
+umbers;
[download]

I assumed an instance of the number was sufficient and that duplicates could be ignored, but you're absolutely right. I think grep would be a better call.

my @ordered_result_list = sort keys %results;
[download]

That's wrong. You're sorting lexically, so 10 comes before 9.

print sort 1..10;  # 1 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
[download]

The above is equivalent to

print sort { $a cmp $b } 1..10;  # 1 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
[download]

You want to sort numerically.

print sort { $a <=> $b } 1..10;  # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
[download]

Of course, there's no reason to sort the result if you just want the highest.

use List::Util qw( max );

print max 1..10;  # 10
[download]

my %results = map { $_ => 1 if ( $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_wat
+ermark ) } @all_numbers;
[download]

That's wrong. You're incorrectly assuming the expression in the map returns nothing when the condition is false.

$ perl -wle'my %h = map { $_ => 1 if $_ > 5; } 1..3; print 0+keys(%h);
+'
Odd number of elements in hash assignment at -e line 1.
1
[download]

You wanted:

my %results = map { if ( $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_watermark )
+ { $_ => 1 } else { () } } @all_numbers;
[download]

Or:

my %results = map { ( $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_watermark ) ? 
+$_ => 1 : () } @all_numbers;
[download]

But why is a hash involved at all?

my @results = grep { $low_watermark < $_ && $_ < $high_watermark } @al
+l_numbers;

print max(@results), "\n";
[download]

For that matter, why use max, since the natol44 specified "a sorted array of numbers"?

print $results[-1],"\n";
[download]

:)

Mike

Good catch. Thanks.