sorting Array of hashes

balajinagaraju has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks, I am newbie to perl and i am stuck at some point where i wanted to sort a datastructure as shown below , its basically an array of hashes and i am clueless how to sort it. I need testcase1, 2 and 3 and so on in an order and i need the 'step' to be listed from step1 to stepN in increasing order and i also need to sort the values within each step if the parameters are similar to what is listed under step4, i need them in order from param1 to param4.. Can anyone help me in solving this.

my @array = (
    
          'testcase1' => {
                         'step2' => {
                                    'command' => 'Goto'
                                  },
                         'step1' => {
                                    'param2' => 'dirpath',
                                    'param1' => 'executablepath',
                                    'command' => 'Launch '
                                  },
                         'step4' => {
                                    'param4' => '580',
                                    'param2' => '96',
                                    'param3' => '726',
                                    'param1' => '3',
                                    'command' => 'CaptureRectanlge'
                                  },
                         'step5' => {
                                    'image1' => 'D:\\\\img1.jpg',
                                    'image2' => 'D:\\\\img2.jpg ',
                                    'command' => 'CompareImage'
                                  },
                         'step3' => {
                                    'param1' => '100',
                                    'command' => 'Run'
                                  }
                       },
          'testcase2' => {
                         'step2' => {
                                    'command' => 'Goto'
                                  },
                         'step1' => {
                                    'param2' => 'dirpath',
                                    'param1' => 'executablepath',
                                    'command' => 'Launchsimulator '
                                  },
                         'step4' => {
                                    'param4' => '580',
                                    'param2' => '96',
                                    'param3' => '726',
                                    'param1' => '3',
                                    'command' => 'CaptureRectanlge'
                                  },
                         'step5' => {
                                    'image1' => 'D:\\\\img1.jpg',
                                    'image2' => 'D:\\\\img2.jpg ',
                                    'command' => 'CompareImage'
                                  },
                         'step3' => {
                                    'param1' => '100',
                                    'command' => 'Run'
                                  }
                       },
          'testcase3' => {
                        'command6' => 'F',
                        'commandA' => 'J',
                        'command8' => 'H',
                        'command7' => 'G',
                        'command9' => 'I'
                      }
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Re: sorting Array of hashes by Happy-the-monk (Canon) on Apr 03, 2012 at 08:48 UTC
Why do you want to stort it? The hash just stores your data, when you have it printed out, that's just *one* particular form of representation. (An internal quirk if you will.) You may need sorting when you extract the data from the hash then. Your example looks a bit like Data::Dumper output. If my assumtion is right, setting `$Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1;` will probably do what you want. If it is more complicated, you will have to use the sort funtion. Cheers, Sören	[reply]
Re^2: sorting Array of hashes by balajinagaraju (Sexton) on Apr 03, 2012 at 09:17 UTC
Hi, Thanks a lot for your suggestions , @soren adding this statement $Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1 in my program worked like charm...	[reply]
Re: sorting Array of hashes by nemesdani (Friar) on Apr 03, 2012 at 08:47 UTC
If you'd like to sort the testcases as well, then use a hash instead of an array in the first place. And DON'T call it %hash :), it's just not healthy. Let @array be %testcases instead. You can then `sort keys %testcases` and process the embedded hashes as well. I'm too lazy to be proud of being impatient.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: sorting Array of hashes by balajinagaraju (Sexton) on Apr 03, 2012 at 09:18 UTC
Hi , Thanks for your input, i will incorporate your suggestions:-)	[reply]