I think i understand what you're asking regarding the apparent same time operations of keys and values in your line of code.
What actually happens with keys or values is that a list of all of the proper info (keys or values) is created all at once. Keys and values are not really iterators. They can appear to be, but the list is created all at once.

On the other hand, each is a true iterator, and uses the hashes internal position iterator (cant think of the real name) to keep track of where it was.

Consider the following code:

use strict;
use warnings;

{
    my %hash = (
        'a' =>  1,
        'b' =>  2,
        'c' =>  3,
    );

    foreach my $key (keys %hash) {
        print "$key = $hash{$key}\n";
        foreach my $key (keys %hash) {
            print "\t$key\n";
        }
    }
}
[download]

It outputs:

c = 3
        c
        a
        b
a = 1
        c
        a
        b
b = 2
        c
        a
        b

This is because keys assembles a full list, and its that list that the foreach's are iterating over.

Now consider this code (on the same hash)

   while ( my($key, $value) = each %hash ) {
        print "$key = $value\n";
        foreach my $key (keys %hash) {
            print "\t$key\n";
        }
    }
[download]

This results in an infinite loop because on each time through the while loop, each gives back the next key-value pair. By next I mean in the sense of checking the hash iterator. But the inner foreach loop calls keys on the same hash as the outer loop. keys and values both automatically reset the iterator, and create their return list by iterating thru the whole hash. And after getting to the end, the iterator is again reset for next time. Then, when the each is called again, the iterator says to return the first key-value pair.

This can be seen by letting the infinite loop run a few times.

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.