I discovered a bit of strangeness quite by accident (actually by bad programming technique). I was doing some quick and dirty work and wanting to print out a hash without "foreach-ing" my way through it. It's not a big problem, but I would like to know why I'm getting the output I'm getting.

Here's a bit of sample code and the output:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
my %hash;

#====================================================
sub print_bare {
    print "\n\n";
    print "print \%hash with nothing else (no formatting):\n";
    print %hash;
    print "\n\n";
}
sub print_formatted {
    print "print \%hash with other text:\n";
    print "\%hash: " . %hash . "\n\n";
}
sub print_sorted {
    print "print \%hash sorted:\n";
    foreach my $key (sort { $hash{$b} cmp $hash{$a} } (keys(%hash))) {
+ 
        print "\$key:$key  \$hash{$key}:$hash{$key} \n";
    }
    print "\n\n";
}
#====================================================
%hash = (' Charlie and Alice ' => ' can ', 
        ' Fred and Ethyl ' => ' cannot ', 
        ' Ernie and Betty ' => ' do not care ', 
        ' Arnold and Janet ' => ' might ');

print_bare;
print_sorted;
print_formatted;

print "\n\n";
%hash = (' Charlie and Alice ' => ' can ', 
        ' Fred and Ethyl ' => ' cannot ');

print_bare;
print_sorted;
print_formatted;
[download]

Output:

print %hash with nothing else (no formatting):
 Ernie and Betty  do not care  Fred and Ethyl  cannot  Arnold and Jane
+t  might  Charlie and Alice  can

print %hash sorted:
$key: Arnold and Janet   $hash{ Arnold and Janet }: might
$key: Ernie and Betty   $hash{ Ernie and Betty }: do not care
$key: Fred and Ethyl   $hash{ Fred and Ethyl }: cannot
$key: Charlie and Alice   $hash{ Charlie and Alice }: can


print %hash with other text:
%hash: 3/8





print %hash with nothing else (no formatting):
 Fred and Ethyl  cannot  Charlie and Alice  can

print %hash sorted:
$key: Fred and Ethyl   $hash{ Fred and Ethyl }: cannot
$key: Charlie and Alice   $hash{ Charlie and Alice }: can


print %hash with other text:
%hash: 2/8
[download]

I tried to find via googling what the "3/8" and the "2/8" represent with no luck. I was really surprised I didn't get something like a memory location or something, like when you try to improperly de-reference an array. This is not a big problem, but I would consider any answer as a contribution to a struggling novice's education.

Thanks in advance!

btw - I'm running v5.10.1 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread on Windows XP sp3 if it matters...