This method reduces the number of times through loops

The number of loops is usually less important than how they are nested. 5 loops, none of them nested means run-time on the order of O(5*$n) which is O($n). You had three of your loops nested which is more like O($n**3).

In this case, the loop sizes are more like $n (number of families), $m (number of members per family), and $n*$m (total number of members) so we go from O( ($n*$m)**2 ) to just O($n*$m).

                - tye

In reply to Re^3: Hash of Arrays - Sort over all array entries (nesting) by tye
in thread Hash of Arrays - Sort over all array entries by knexus

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.