#!/usr/bin/perl # http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=1177217 use strict; use warnings; my @ar1 = qw(text1.txt text1a.txt text2.txt text54.txt text1g.txt text54f.txt); my %latest; @latest{ /^text(\d+)\D/ } = $_ for sort @ar1; my @lastversion = @latest{sort {$a <=> $b} keys %latest}; print "@lastversion\n";