use warnings; use strict; my $column=2; my @sort_col; my @lines; while() { my @F=split(/\|/,$_); push @sort_col, $F[$column]; push @lines, "$_"; } @sort_col = map {[$_ => /^\d+$/ ? 0 : /^\D+$/ ? 1 : 2]} @sort_col; my @sortedOrder = sort {$sort_col[$a][1] cmp $sort_col[$b][1] or $sort_col[$a][0] cmp $sort_col[$b][0]} 0 .. $#sort_col; print @lines[@sortedOrder]; __DATA__ D|0|95465tan|2|4|4|14028.77|0.00|BF2-002|22/09/2009|07/01/2009|06/09/2009|45544564| D|0|954564545|1|4|abar_BF4|4|3913.17|0.00|accabar_BF4-003|22/09/2009|07/02/2009|06/09/2009|10254754| D|0|a454654|1|4|ar_BF4|4|3913.17|0.00|acctrabar_BF4-003|22/09/2009|07/02/2009|06/09/2009|11122323| D|0|Chking|1|4|arabar_BF4|4|3913.17|0.00|acarabar_BF4-003|22/09/2009|07/02/2009|06/09/2009|11122323|