chomp(my @unsorted = ()); my @sorted = sort { @{[(split('-',$b))]}[0] =~ s/\d+// cmp @{[(split('-',$a))]}[0] =~ s/\d+// || (split('-',$b))[-1] cmp (split('-',$a))[-1] } @unsorted; say for @sorted; __DATA__ ID12-ABC-5.1 ID9-ABC-5.1 ID3-ABC-6.1 ABC-5.1 ID12-ABC-5.1.5 ID15-ABC-6.1 ABC-6.1 ID5-ABC-5.1 ID5-ABC-5.1.5 ABC-5.1.5