Hello Monks,

I was wondering if anyone knows if its possible to use Tie::IxHash (or something similar) in such a way that all hashes retain their key order.


My situation is this:

I've got a text file that needs modifying, and it is structured remarkably similar to a hash of hashes (I just need to search and replace '()' with '{}' and '=' with '=>'). Because of the structure, creating a hash with a 'do' statement is very easy. The problem is, after I've performed the necessary changes, I'd like to output the file again in the same order. Usually when I need to preserve the key order for a hash, I use 'Tie::IxHash', but since I'm creating the hash of hashes from a file, I can't tie second level of hashes with 'Tie::IxHash'.


E.g.
Script:

use Data::Dumper;
use Tie::IxHash;
tie %data, 'Tie::IxHash';

  do "File";

  $data{SomeMoreStuff}{SomeMoreData} = 'x';

  print Dumper \%data;

File:

%data = (
SomeStuff => {
  SomeData => 'a',
  SomeMoreData =>'b',
  OtherData =>'c',
},
SomeMoreStuff => {
  SomeData =>'a',
  SomeMoreData => 'b',
  SomeExtraData => 'c',
  OtherData => 'd'
}
);

The output looks like:

$VAR1 = {
          'SomeStuff' => {
                           'OtherData' => 'c',
                           'SomeMoreData' => 'b',
                           'SomeData' => 'a'
                         },
          'SomeMoreStuff' => {
                               'OtherData' => 'd',
                               'SomeMoreData' => 'x',
                               'SomeExtraData' => 'c',
                               'SomeData' => 'a'
                             }
        };

The output I want:

$VAR1 = {
          'SomeStuff' => {
                           'SomeData' => 'a'
                           'SomeMoreData' => 'b',
                           'OtherData' => 'c',
                         },
          'SomeMoreStuff' => {
                               'SomeData' => 'a'
                               'SomeMoreData' => 'x',
                               'SomeExtraData' => 'c',
                               'OtherData' => 'd',
                             }
        };

Anyone have any thoughts on how to tie the second level hashes without needing to parse the file line by line and tie each hash as its created?

Thanks!