#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my %hash1 = ("1", "20", "2", "20", "4", "19", "5", "20", "6", "18"); my %hash2 = ("1", "19", "2", "20", "4", "16", "5", "19", "6", "20"); my %differences; for my $key ( sort {$a <=> $b} keys %hash1) { $differences{$key} = $hash1{$key} - $hash2{$key}; print "$key ($hash1{$key} - $hash2{$key}) = $differences{$key}\n"; } print "\n", Dumper \%differences; __END__ 1 (20 - 19) = 1 2 (20 - 20) = 0 4 (19 - 16) = 3 5 (20 - 19) = 1 6 (18 - 20) = -2 $VAR1 = { '6' => -2, '4' => 3, '1' => 1, '2' => 0, '5' => 1 };