#!/usr/bin/perl -- use strict; use warnings; my @list = ( qw{ bigBoy bigbang bigboy x10y x9y x11y 1.01 1.3 1.02 1.2 x1.1y x1.01y x2.3y x2.1y } ); print join "\n", map { $$_[0] } sort { $$a[1] cmp $$b[1] } map { my $f = $_; $f =~ s/(\d+)/sprintf '%06d',$1/ge; [ $_, lc $f ] } @list; __END__ 1.01 1.02 1.2 1.3 bigbang bigBoy bigboy x1.1y x1.01y x2.1y x2.3y x9y x10y x11y