OK, for those onlookers: After extensive conversation in the chatterbox, Clownburner told me the following:

{name} and {data} arrays map 1:1 onto each other, and the first two elements of the {data} array correspond to input and output rates, while the first two elements of the {name} array correspond to filenames.

Clownburner wants a list of filenames sorted by greatest rates (input or output).

First, get the list of name-value pairs for the first two values of {data} from @alldata

my @names_and_rates = map { [ $_->{name}[0], $_->{data}[0] ],
                [ $_->{name}[1], $_->{data}[1] ] } 
            @alldata;
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Now what you've got is an array, each element of which is an anonymous array consisting of a name -> rate pair. i.e.:

@names_and_rates = ( [ name1, rate1],
            [name2, rate2],
            ...
            );
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What you want to do is sort that array by the second element of each anonymous array, i.e.

my @final_list = sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1] } @names_and_rates;
# $b first for descending order
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I think that will get you what you want. You can, of course, combine the two statements into one, e.g.

my @final_list = sort { #sort stuff } map { #map stuff } @alldata;
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but I think that might be confusing if you come back to this code later, especially given the farrago of syntax. YMMV, IANAProfessional, etc.

I hope this is right and that it helps.

a nicety : if you want to print out the top n, do this:

print "File\t\tRate\n";

foreach (@final_list[0 .. $n-1] ) {
    print $_->[0], "\t\t", $_->[1], "\n";
}
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Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor

Ok, we're nearly there.. but I have one mysterious problem I cannot understand:

I inserted this code:


    my @names_and_rates = map { [ $_->{name}[0], $_->{data}[0] ],[ $_-
+>{name}[1], $_->{data}[1] ] } @alldata;
    @maxref = sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1] } @names_and_rates;
    foreach (@maxref[0 .. 2] ) { print $_->[0], "\t\t", $_->[1]*8, "\n
+<BR>";    }
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But got this:

file      rate
          384434.306056 
          191966.35544 
          122524.077608 

So clearly I'm missing the {name} parameter. So, I figured what I needed to do was flatten out the @alldata array a bit. I used this:
Update Fixed a minor typo in the code below...


    my @maxtmp = sort { $b->{data} <=> $a->{data} } @alldata; 
    my @names_and_rates = map { [ $_->{name}, $_->{data}->[0] ],[ $_->
+{name}, $_->{data}->[1] ] } @maxtmp;
    @maxref = sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1] } @names_and_rates;
    foreach (@maxref[0 .. 2] ) { print $_->[0], "\t\t", $_->[1]*8, "\n
+<BR>";    }
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..And it worked!
Now I just need to know a more effective way than that first sort to flatten out the array, since the first sort operation (to @maxtmp) is wasted - but I didn't know how to use the map command to do the same thing.

Any hints?!? Update 2: Thanks to arturo for the simple fix, below:


    my @names_and_rates = map { [ $_->{name}, $_->{data}->[0] ],[ $_->
+{name}, $_->{data}->[1] ] } @alldata;
    @maxref = sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1] } @names_and_rates;

#this next bit just prints the top three
    foreach (@maxref[0 .. 2] ) { print $_->[0], "\t\t", $_->[1]*8, "\n
+<BR>";    }
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