my %dictionary; readWords(\%dictionary); sortDictionary(\%dictionary); sub readWords { my ($dict) = @_; # <<--- grab hashref argument $numWords = 0; open FILE, $ARGV[0] or die $!; while (my $lines = ) { $numWords++; chomp $lines; my ($words, $definitions) = split('/', $lines); $words = lc($words); $dict->{$words} = $definitions; # <<--- renamed $dictionary to $dict } foreach $key (%{ $dict }) { # <<--- use $dict exclusively, but as the hash it's pointing to print $dict->{$words}; # <<--- renamed $dictionary to $dict print $result . "\n"; } close FILE; } sub sortDictionary { my ($dict) = @_; # <<--- grab hashref argument foreach my $key (sort keys %{ $dict }) { # <<--- use $dict exclusively, but as the hash it's pointing to $key =~ /^(.)/; my $line = $key . '/' . $dict->{$key} . "\n"; # <<--- renamed $dictionary to $dict print $line; } }