How can I pack a hash in a well-defined key order

[Steve D]

I'd like to create (a lot) of message definitions to be used with Pack
and Unpack. There would be a default, with every key defined "in the
correct order" and replacements would be permitted on the fly.
Something like:

my $messages = {
1 => {
Name => "setip",
Data => {
item => 20,
IP_Addr => "100.100.100.100",
Port => 2000,
} ,
Format => "xNxsxN",
} ,
2 => {
...

and then do something like
### pack data for message $m
my %record = %$messages{$m}{Data} ;
### read in a list of field, value pairs
### assume one line with $field ="IP_Addr" and $value =
"200.200.200.200".
$record{$field} = $value ;
### now pack the code
my $data = pack( $$messages{$m}{Format}, @{[%record]} );
### then transmit the data, nicely packed up

This doesn't work because hash key order is undefined.

The Cookbook 5.6 says to use Tie::IxHash, but I can't get that to work
with a reference to an anonymous hash inside a complex structure (even
if I build the structure with a reference to an empty hash and then
call tie on dereference of that reference and then add elements -- in
fact, in that case I can't seem to even add elements to the
dereferenced hash).

So ... how can I set this up, short of retyping all the elements into
an array that is kept with the hash, e.g.
1 => {
Name => "setip",
Data => {
item => 20,
IP_Addr => "100.100.100.100",
Port => 2000,
} ,
Data_Order => [ 'item', 'IP_Addr', 'Port' ] ; # yuk
Format => "xNxsxN",

Regards,
Steve