my $fieldtosort = 9; # person, for now.

my @data = <DATA>; 
my @sorted = map { $_->[0] } 
sort sortf map { [$_, split /\|/ ] } @data; 
print @sorted; 

# sort by $fieldtosort
sub sortf {
$a->[$fieldtosort] cmp $b->[$fieldtosort]; 
} 

__DATA__ 
id|projname|status|submitdt|assign_dt|total|complete_dt|person|dept|closed_dt