Re^2: Lookup closest hash key

[Anonymous Monk]

Didn't you mean this, rather?

sub nearest{
    my ( $dist, $href ) = @_;
    my ( $answer ) = ( sort { abs( $a - $dist ) <=> abs( $b - $dist ) 
+} keys %$href )[0];
    return $href -> { $answer };
}

Otherwise this is a great trick, thanks!

[choroba]

my ($answer) creates list context, so the [0] at the end is not needed: it is a list assignment, the first element on the left gets the first element on the right. With the index at the end, you can drop the parentheses on the left, as it is a scalar assignment:

my $answer = ( sort { abs( $a - $dist ) <=> abs( $b - $dist ) } keys %
+$href )[0];