I admit I am not the best when it comes to working with hashes and arrays, but willing to try and learn if pointed in the right direction.

One interactive example of sorting an array by any field Re: Need help to guide how to create client sort table ( mojo.template.array.autoindex.sortable.pl )

dropbox

No need for a pastebin at perlmonks, Writeup Formatting Tips

That is fine if you are on your own server and can easily add what you want. It's not quite that easy on a shared server unfortunately.

Oh. Yeah, people always bring that up, and it just ain't true :) see Yes, even you can use CPAN Top 11 (GOOD) reasons not to use someone else's Modules, Top Seven (Bad) Reasons Not To Use Modules, Surreptitiously adding modules to GoDaddy basic Linux account?, http://www.cavapackager.com/...Installing modules without root and shell

Use XML::Twig :) it comes with many examples/tutorials
or use XML::Rules, which like XML::Twig only needs XML::Parser which you probably might already have
or use Mojo::DOM , it doesn't even need XML::Parser
see Re^2: XML:: Twig - can you check for text following the element being handled?, Re^3: parse xml and store data in array of hashesh, Re: How to return two and more values by parsing XML with XML::Rules?, Re^3: change setHandlers XML::Parser , Re: The best module for handling xml for examples, walkthroughs, follow my links and the links they link, like these Re: How to grab a portion of file with regex (don't)(parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because html::parser is low level), Re: How to grab a portion of file with regex (parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because xml::parser is low level), Re^4: How to grab a portion of file with regex (parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because ::parser is low level)

Does anyone know of a good place to start with examples of how to best go about loading things into an array, and then sorting, if that is the best way?

perlfaq -> perlfaq4#How do I sort a hash (optionally by value instead of key)?, How do I sort an array by (anything)?

DBI with DBM::Deep or DBD::CSV

Everyone seems to be going the JSON route these days, so probably rewrite in JSON unless there is a reason to go with XML I guess.

Um, if its not broke don't fix it :)