#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @list= ; my @sorted= @list[ map { unpack "N", substr($_,-4) } sort map { my $key= $list[$_]; $key =~ s[(\d+)][ pack "N", $1 ]ge; $key . pack "N", $_ } 0..$#list ]; print @sorted; __END__ a1.5 a1.5b a1.55 a1.55b a1.6 a1.6b linux-2.4.28.tar linux-2.4.29.tar linux-2.4.29a.tar linux-2.4.3.tar linux-2.10.6.tar linux-2.10.50.tar