You could simply use @values = sort @values, since this checks the first two digits

They are not exactly the same thing.

Your method will only work if every element had the same number of digits. If you were to compare "1abc" and "10abc", it would give you the wrong order.

perl -e '@array=(qw(1abc 10abc));@sorted=sort @array; print "@sorted\n
+";'

10abc 1abc


perl -e '@array=(qw(1abc 10abc)); @sorted = sort {$a<=>$b}  @array;
print "@sorted\n";'

1abc 10abc
[download]