How do I sort a hash (optionally by value instead of key)?

Internally, hashes are stored in a way that prevents you from imposing an order on key-value pairs. Instead, you have to sort a list of the keys or values:

    @keys = sort keys %hash;	# sorted by key
    @keys = sort {
		    $hash{$a} cmp $hash{$b}
	    } keys %hash; 	# and by value

Here we'll do a reverse numeric sort by value, and if two keys are identical, sort by length of key, or if that fails, by straight ASCII comparison of the keys (well, possibly modified by your locale--see perllocale).

    @keys = sort {
		$hash{$b} <=> $hash{$a}
			  ||
		length($b) <=> length($a)
			  ||
		      $a cmp $b
    } keys %hash;

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