It looks like you want ordered rank.

my @original = qw(5, 100, 2, 8, 40);
my @sorted_indicies = sort { $original[$a] <=> $original[$b] } 0..$#or
+iginal;
my @rank;
@rank[@sorted_indicies] = 0..$#sorted_indicies;
my @letters = map { chr(ord('A') + $_) } @rank;
print "@letters\n";
[download]

That gives me "B E A C D", just like you want.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.