my $hash; foreach my $csn (keys %$datastore) { push @{$hash->{$datastore->{$csn}->[3]}}, $datastore->{$csn}->[0]; } foreach (keys %$hash) { my @sorted = sort { $a <=> $b } @{$hash->{$_}}; $hash->{$_} = \@sorted; } foreach (keys %$datastore) { $datastore->{$_} = [$datastore->{$_}->[1],$datastore->{$_}->[2],$datastore->{$_}->[3], indexof($hash->{$datastore->{$_}->[3]}, $datastore->{$_}->[0])]; } sub indexof{ my ($array_ref, $search_for) = (shift, shift); my @array = @$array_ref; my( $index )= grep { $array[$_] eq $search_for } 0..$#array; return ($index + 1); }