Win8 Strawberry 5.8.9.5 (32) Wed 12/02/2020 16:19:55 C:\@Work\Perl\monks >perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -l my @list = ('1,cat', '2,dog', '22,mouse', '11,eel', '001,elk', '13,mink'); my @sorted = sort numeric_ascending @list; print for @sorted; sub numeric_ascending { no warnings 'numeric'; $a <=> $b; } ^Z 1,cat 001,elk 2,dog 11,eel 13,mink 22,mouse