#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; my %accounts = ( tom => "BigApple", tom2 => "BigApple2", tom3 => "BigApple3", tom4 => "BigApple4", tom5 => "BigApple5", tom6 => "BigApple6", tom7 => "BigApple7", ); # sort the users in descending order my $counter = 1; for my $userID (reverse sort keys %accounts) { print "$userID\t"; print "\n" if $counter++ % 3 == 0; } __END__ Prints: tom7 tom6 tom5 tom4 tom3 tom2 tom