The syntax forms are:

values %hash
values @array

This function is the counterpart of the keys function which returns a list with the indices of an array or the keys of a hash.

Using the Perl values function with hashes

The values of the hash will be returned in a random order which it has nothing to do with the order you added the pair elements in the hash.

You can use the list of values for further processing (for example you may have a hash of arrays where the values of the hash are references to anonymous arrays and you need to dereference them to get the elements of the anonymous arrays) or simple to print the elements returned by the function.

To go through the list elements returned by the Perl values function you can use any loop statement or a function like grep or map.

The following example will print the values of a hash:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my %hash = ( 1 => "left",  2 => "bottom",
             3 => "right", 4 => "up" );
# print the hash values using the foreach loop

print("The arrows keys are: ");
print "$_ " foreach (values %hash);
print "\n";

# it prints: The arrows keys are: up left right bottom

print "$hash{$_} " foreach (keys %hash);

my ($k, $v);
print "$v " while (($k, $v) = each %hash);

As you know, in a hash the keys are unique, but generally the values aren’t. You can use the reverse function twice to get the unique values of a hash, like in the following example:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my %hash = ( 1 => "left",  2 => "bottom", 5 => "left",
             3 => "right", 4 => "up",     6 => "up");

%hash = reverse %hash;
%hash = reverse %hash;

print("The values are: ", join(' ', values %hash), "\n");

The values are: up left right bottom

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my %hash = ( 1 => "left",  2 => "bottom", 5 => "left" );
my $size = values %hash;
print "$size\n";
# it prints: 3

to see a lot of fully commented examples that help you use the Perl built-in functions in your scripts.

You can use the Perl values function with arrays in a similar manner that we’ve done with hashes.

You have a commented example below:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = ( 'blue', 'yellow', 'red', 'green', 'black', 'white');

# list context
print("Values are: ", join(' ', values @array), "\n");
# it prints: Values are: blue yellow red green black white

# scalar context
my $size = values @array;
print "$size\n";
# it prints: 6