use strict; my $column=3; my @F; my @sort_col; my @lines; my $file=$ARGV[0]; while(<>) { #print "Input line " .$_; @F=split(/\|/,$_); print "Array elesems $F[3]\n"; push @sort_col, $F[$column]; push @lines, "$_"; } print @lines[sort{ $sort_col[$a] lt $sort_col[$b] } 0..$#sort_col] ;