my @array = ( ["foo", 1], ["bar", 3], ["baz", 4], ["quux", 9] ); @array = sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] || $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]} @array; my $sum = 0; $_->[2] = ($sum += $_->[1]) for @array; my $v = int(rand $sum); my $idx = 0; $idx++ while ( $v > $array[$idx][2] ); print $array[$idx][0],"\n"; #### my @list = map { ($_->[0]) x $_->[1] } @array; my $elem = $list[rand @list];