#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict ;

my @array = (
  "row #1\t106\thello",
  "row #2\t101\tgoodbye",
  "row #3\t104\thi again!"
) ;
my $datafields = 3 ;
my $sort = 1 ;
my $sortby = "number" ;
print join ("\n", sort {&sort_func} @array) ;

##</code><code>##

my $col = 1 ; # this is called "$sort" and "$item_no" in the original
my @sorted = sort {(split ("\t", $b)) [$col] <=> (split ("\t", $a)) [$col]} @array ;