>perl -wMstrict -le "my $u = '(x1,y9)(x11,y8)(x1,y7)(x11,y6)(x2,y5)(x22,y4)(x2,y3)(x22,y2)'; ;; use constant WIDTH => 10; my $s = join '', map { substr $_, WIDTH+WIDTH } sort map { sprintf '%0*4$d%0*4$d%s', m{\d+}xmsg, $_, WIDTH } split m{ (?<= \)) (?= \() }xms, $u ; ;; print qq{'$s'}; " '(x1,y7)(x1,y9)(x2,y3)(x2,y5)(x11,y6)(x11,y8)(x22,y2)(x22,y4)'