use strict;
my @the_data = (
              {
                  field1 => 'first item',
                  field2 => 8,
                 field3 => 'z',
                  },

              {
                  field1 => 'second item',
                  field2 => 2,
                  field3 => 'b',
                  },

              {
                  field1 => 'third item',
                  field2 => 6,
                  field3 => 'c',
                  },

              );

# sort @the_data by field2 and field3...

for ( sort { ($$a{field2} <=> $$b{field2}) && ($$a{field3} cmp $$b{field3}) } @the_data ) {
    print $$_{field1} . "\n";
}

##</code><code>##

 second item
third item
first item