my @look = ; my @out = sort { (split '\|', $a, 12)[4] <=> (split '\|', $b, 12)[4] } @look; foreach my $line (@out) { print $line; } __DATA__ accred|143|0|0|412|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0| accu-b|36|0|0|103|0|38|0|0|0|0|2|0| accua|35|0|0|27|0|37|0|0|0|0|1|0| [...]