Thanks for the post.

With regards to 2. each array has different lengths, example from your post

[
  ["a" .. "d"],
  [1 .. 9],
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
]
[download]

I would want that sorted from min to max number of elements

[ red
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
  ["a" .. "d"],
  [1 .. 9],
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
]
[download]

for 3., yes I want to sort the array_of_arrays by the lexical subarray variable names. maybe this needs to be shoved into a string, parsed then ordered??

a random sort of the arrays might be

[
  [1 .. 9],
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
  ["a" .. "d"],
  red
]
[download]

f77coder: Further to NetWallah's post, you have to realize that Perl strings are not arrays (e.g., not in the sense that C strings are char arrays). However, they do both have 'length' (number of characters vs. number of elements) and so are comparable. But when you mix strings and array references promiscuously, you must be sure each element is correctly recognized so its 'length' can be correctly derived. (This code assumes only strings and array references are mixed together, and also has a shuffle example.)

c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le
"use List::Util qw(shuffle);
 use Data::Dump;
 ;;
 my @ra_1 = qw(a b c d);
 my @ra_2 = (1 .. 9);
 my @ra_3 = qw(p z e t i u);
 my @ra_4 = qw(foo bar baz);
 ;;
 my @AoA = (\@ra_1, 'foozle', \@ra_2, 'red', \@ra_3, \@ra_4);
 dd \@AoA;
 ;;
 my @sorted =
   sort { (ref $a ? @$a : length $a) <=> (ref $b ? @$b : length $b) }
   @AoA
   ;
 dd \@sorted;
 ;;
 my @shuffled = shuffle @sorted;
 dd \@shuffled;
"
[
  ["a" .. "d"],
  "foozle",
  [1 .. 9],
  "red",
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
]

[
  "red",
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
  ["a" .. "d"],
  "foozle",
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
  [1 .. 9],
]

[
  [1 .. 9],
  ["a" .. "d"],
  "foozle",
  ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
  "red",
  ["p", "z", "e", "t", "i", "u"],
]
[download]

Thank you, good post.

The structure you seem to be heading toward is something like this:

 my @AoA = ([ra_1=> \@ra_1], [ra2=>\@ra_2], [ra3=>\@ra_3], [ra4=>\@ra_
+4]);
  # Fat comma's used for readability
[download]

This allows you to sort by Size, then name..

my @AoA_sorted_by_size_Then_Name =
             sort {@{$a->[1]} <=> @{$b->[1]} || $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]}
              @AoA;
[download]

*UNTETSED*

        "You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."         - Robin Williams

Excellent, thank you.