c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le
"my @list = (
   ['blah', 'asdf', 'foo', 'bar'],
   ['two'],
   ['zzz', 'def', 'ghi'],
   ['one'],
   ['mmm', 'def', 'ghi'],
   ['qqq', 'xyz', 'aaa'],
   );
 ;;
 my @sorted =
   map undecorate(\@list, $_),
   sort
   map decorate(\@list, $_),
   0 .. $#list
   ;
 dd \@sorted;
 ;;
 sub decorate {
   my ($ar_list, $i) = @_;
   ;;
   my $elems = @{ $ar_list->[$i] };
   my @smeti = reverse @{ $ar_list->[$i] };
   ;;
   return pack qq{N (Z*)$elems N}, $elems, @smeti, $i
   }
 ;;
 sub undecorate {
   my ($ar_list, $decoration) = @_;
   ;;
   return $ar_list->[ unpack 'x* X[N] N', $decoration ];
   }
"
[
  ["one"],
  ["two"],
  ["qqq", "xyz", "aaa"],
  ["mmm", "def", "ghi"],
  ["zzz", "def", "ghi"],
  ["blah", "asdf", "foo", "bar"],
]