which is why i don't send in patches for this type of thing (slow but not broken). the actual fastest i've found is almost the most simple...

use Socket qw( inet_aton inet_ntoa );

sub sort_sock
{
  map { inet_ntoa($_) }
  sort
  map { inet_aton($_) } @_
}
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which give me:

       s/iter faster    tye   sock
faster   2.06     --   -29%   -64%
tye      1.46    41%     --   -49%
sock    0.737   179%    98%     --

can it get better? will locale settings mess with the sort? will Unicode bite me? i'm unsure.