If your hash is large, then using the sort function just to retrieve the smallest value is inefficient overkill. Use a variable, say $min, and set it to any key that you know to exist (or to a very large value such as 1e10 that you know will larger than at least one of the keys). Then you can simply do something like this: 
my $min = 1e10;
for my $key (keys %h) {
     $min = $key if $key < $min; 
}
# now, $min is the smallest key. The associated value is simply $h{$mi
+n}

[download]
Now, depending on how you get the data in the first place, you could also maintain the $min variable when populating the hash, thereby avoiding to read all the keys once more.

In reply to Re^2: How do I keep the first key in a sorted hash? by Laurent_R
in thread How do I keep the first key in a sorted hash? by Anonymous Monk

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.