foreach my $line (@lines) { $sth->execute($line, $line) or die "Can't execute SQL statement: $DBI::errstr\n"; my @all_rows; while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref()) { push(@all_rows, $ref ); } my @sorted = map { $_->[0] } sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] || $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] || $a->[4] <=> $b->[4] } map { [$_, split(/\./, (split /\s+/, $_)[1] ) ] } @all_rows; my @all_rows1 = map { [ split( /\s+/, $_ ) ] } @all_rows; my @sorted1 = map { join( ' ', @{ $_->[0] } ) } sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] || $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] || $a->[4] <=> $b->[4] } map { [$_, split(/\./, $$_[1] ) ] } @all_rows1; print Dumper @sorted1; } #### $VAR1 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR2 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR3 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR1 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR2 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR3 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR4 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR5 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR6 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR1 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR1 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; $VAR1 = 'ARRAY(0x94db6f8)'; #### $VAR1 = [ 'data', 'data', 'data', 'data', 'data', ]; $VAR2 = [ 'data', 'etc..etc',