use warnings;
use strict;

my (%HoH) = (
    "Smith" => {
        "house_type" => 'colonial',
        "head_count" => '5',
    },
    "Jones" => {
        "house_type" => 'cape',
        "head_count" => '3',
    },
);

for (reverse sort { $HoH{$a}{head_count} <=> $HoH{$b}{head_count} } ke
+ys %HoH) {
    print "$_ House Type: $HoH{$_}{house_type} Head Count: $HoH{$_}{he
+ad_count}\n";
}

__END__

Smith House Type: colonial Head Count: 5
Jones House Type: cape Head Count: 3
[download]

Is reverse sort optimized away (it would be cool if it swapped the meaning of $a and $b) or do you really mean:

for (sort { $HoH{$b}{head_count} <=> $HoH{$a}{head_count} } keys %HoH)
+ {
    print "$_ House Type: $HoH{$_}{house_type} Head Count: $HoH{$_}{he
+ad_count}\n";
}
[download]

Update: toolic++. I went searching for the definition of "newer perls" and found that this optimization has been around for some time. From perl586delta:

reverse sort ... is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the generation of a temporary intermediate list.

for (reverse @foo) now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a temporary reversed list.

Good Day,
    Dean

I really meant to use reverse. According to Perl::Critic::Policy::BuiltinFunctions::ProhibitReverseSortBlock

Conway says that it is much clearer to use reverse than to flip $a and $b around in a sort block. He also suggests that, in newer perls, reverse is specifically looked for and optimized, and in the case of a simple reversed string sort, using reverse with a sort with no block is faster even in old perls.

Awesome, that did it. Thanks!

Basically you have to store the data in a temporary hash. Keep the family name with the subhash and sort the array by the head count.

#insert HoH here

@temp_array = ();
for $i (keys(%HoH)) {
    #the name must be kept with the subhash.
    $HoH{$i}{"name"} = $i;
    push @temp_array, $HoH{$i}; 
    #updated:transposition error on my part
}
#sort the temp array by decreasing head counts
@temp_array = sort {$$b{"head_count"} <=> $$a{"head_count"}} @temp_arr
+ay;

for $i (@temp_array) {
    print "$$i{'name'} House Type: $$i{'house_type'} Head Count $$i{'h
+ead_count'}\n";

}
[download]

Updated: error in my code.

for $i (keys(%HoH)) {
    #the name must be kept with the subhash.
    $HoH{$i}{"name"} = $i;
    push @temp_array, $HoH
}
[download]

In the above for loop, the statement
    push @temp_array, $HoH
would appear to need to be
    push @temp_array, $HoH{$i};
to work (or to compile with strictures).