Hiya Monkies!

I have written two small functions (that are really the same thing just reworded) to return the lowest key and highest key in a hash. I get the feeling I am doing a lot of work (well, a moderate amount of work) to do something perl probably already does for me.

So without further ado, the code: 

# assume a hash that looks like this:

%hash =
(  1 => $hashref,
   2 => $anotherhashref );

sub least_key {
  my %nums = %{ shift };
  shift (@{ sort { $a <=> $b } keys (%nums) });
}
    
sub high_key {
  my %nums = %{ shift };
  shift (@{ sort { $b <=> $a } keys (%nums) });
}

[download]

Im aware that instead of switching $a and $b, i could have used pop instead of shift, but that isnt really relevant. I also thought this would be interesting to look at because its a perfect example of where perl's syntax gets a little murky.

psst, this isnt a round of perl golf either. :) I am just wondering if there is a better way to do this.

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.

In reply to Returning the lowest key in a hash (or highest) by deprecated

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