You aren't very clear on precisely what your output should be. It sounds like you want an ascending sort based on the number next to the name. This will do that:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $str = 'Lee Morgan : 20
Clifford Brown : 3
Freddie Hubbard : 6
';

my @data = map {[ split /\s+:\s+/, $_]} split /\n/, $str;

for (sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] } @data) {
    print join( ' : ', @$_ ), $/;
}
[download]

You can break the string up with split into a 2D array and then sorting by that number becomes much easier.

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Jeffa, thanks you so much so much so much. I just put on a "reverse" because I needed from bigger to smaller, and now that gives me exactly what I wanted. I will study this little code and keep it in mind. Thank you

If you need descending order, rather than wastefully filtering the sorted results through reverse you can instead just swap $a and $b:

for (sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1] } @data) {
    print join( ' : ', @$_ ), $/;
}
[download]

And since we are on the topic, be sure and check out the Schwartzian Transform.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

perldoc -q sort
[download]

• perlfaq4

... and there are also some good tutorials.

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