From: Michael Joner <finalfrontier@...>
Date: 2002-01-06T10:34:57+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:30320] Sorting a Hash by value of integer stored in the Hash

I have a program which creates a Hash array.  The ultimate result is a
word as the key and an integer as the value.  I'd like to sort by the
value in the Hash, then print the ten highest values and their associated
keys.  I understand that there is a sort Method but I'm not sure how to
get it to work on a Hash.  I know that if my data were simply stored in an
array I could use:

myArray.sort { |a,b| b <=> a }

So I've tried the same technique on the Hash:

myHash.sort { |a,b| b <=> a }

Printing the first ten elements of the resulting object (which was an
array) returned words starting with z and then y (in reverse alphabetical)
and the associated value, run together.  This isn't what I'm trying to
get.  The sort apparently was performed on the keys, but I want to do sort
on the values.  Is there a way to do this?

Mike