I have an excel document that I read through using Spreadsheet::ParseExcel and put all the data into a hash like this: 
 $excel{$tab."-".$row."-".$col} = $cell->{Val};

[download]
I would like to be able to search through the hash, looking for conditionals. For example, on the customer tab in the workbook, if column 1 has a value in it, I want to iterate through the entire row cell by cell so I can write the data a certain way (new customer). If there is a value in that column, I will write that one value and move onto the next sheet in the workbook. What's a good way to do this, or a better way to store my data in a hash and produce good results? I was starting off like this, but it sorts on the first character, as expected, but was thinking it would be quicker if I had a hash of hashes of sorts, and sorted each level of the hash. 

foreach my $key (sort {lc($a) cmp lc($b)} keys %excel) {
        my($tab,$row,$col) = split(/-/, $key);
        if (($tab eq "Customers") && ($col eq "1") {
        
        }

[download]

In reply to Searching through a hash by hallikpapa

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.