open my $in, '<', 'numbers.txt' or die $!; # local $/; # slurp mode my @data = <$in>; chomp @data; close $in; sort_num(@data); my @new_sort=sort_num(); print "this is new sorted data ;",@new_sort; sub sort_num{ my @sorted=sort {$a <=> $b}@_; return @sorted; }