#!/usr/bin/perl -- use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my @unsorted = split /[\r\n]+/, <<'__THE_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 __THE_DATA__ print Dumper( \@unsorted ); my @sorted = sort { @{[(split('-',$b))]}[0] =~ s/\d+// cmp @{[(split('-',$a))]}[0] =~ s/\d+// || (split('-',$b))[-1] cmp (split('-',$a))[-1] } @unsorted; print Dumper( \@sorted ); @sorted = map { $_->[0] } sort { $b->[1] cmp $a->[1] || $b->[2] cmp $a->[2] } map { my(@f) = split /-/, $_; [ $_, scalar( $f[0] =~ s/\d+// ), $f[-1], ]; } @unsorted; print Dumper( \@sorted ); __END__ $VAR1 = [ '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' ]; $VAR1 = [ 'ID3-ABC-6.1', 'ID15-ABC-6.1', 'ID12-ABC-5.1.5', 'ID5-ABC-5.1.5', 'ID12-ABC-5.1', 'ID9-ABC-5.1', 'ID5-ABC-5.1', 'ABC-6.1', 'ABC-5.1.5', 'ABC-5.1' ]; $VAR1 = [ 'ID3-ABC-6.1', 'ID15-ABC-6.1', 'ID12-ABC-5.1.5', 'ID5-ABC-5.1.5', 'ID12-ABC-5.1', 'ID9-ABC-5.1', 'ID5-ABC-5.1', 'ABC-6.1', 'ABC-5.1.5', 'ABC-5.1' ];