use strict; use Benchmark qw(cmpthese); my %bdry; for my $i ( 1 .. 35 ) { for my $j ( 1 .. 35 ) { $bdry{$i}{$j} = 1+ int rand 50; } } cmpthese(1_000, { jetsway=>\&jetsway, mwahsway=>\&mwahsway }); sub jetsway { my @keys = sort { $bdry{ $b->[0] }{ $b->[1] } <=> $bdry{ $a->[0] }{ $a->[1] } } map { my $k = $_; map { [$k, $_] } keys %{ $bdry{$k} } } keys %bdry; return @keys; } sub mwahsway { my @flipped_hash = reverse sort {$a->[0] <=> $b->[0] } flippout (%bdry); return @flipped_hash; } sub flippout { my %h = @_; my @f; while( my ($k,$v) = each %h ) { while( my ($vk,$vv) = each %$v) { push @f, [$vv, $k, $vk] } } return @f }