All,

Thanks so much for all the help--I now have everything working! I needed some extra hand-holding for this one because a lot of the suggestions provided to me were a little (okay, some a lot :-) outside of my perl vocabulary.

Here's a final description of the problem, with working code to follow (below).

Thanks again to all.

Regards,
-Chris

The problem: sort a large file of text formatted like so:

Clock: fci_rx_clk
Pin:   clkgate_i/peaz_gate7/S_5/Y
Net:   fci_rx_clk
Operating Condition     = worst
The clock global skew   = 0.290
The longest path delay  = 4.328
The shortest path delay = 4.038
The longest path delay end pin:  co_8port_i\/peaz_i/LOCKUP4/GN
The shortest path delay end pin: co_8port_i\/peaz_i/fci_i/dec_i\/bmcf_
+INST\/slice03_INST\/b_reg[5]/CK

Clock: aai_tx_clk
Pin:   clkgate_i/peaz_gate1/S_5/Y
Net:   aai_tx_clk
Operating Condition     = worst
The clock global skew   = 0.192
The longest path delay  = 3.430
The shortest path delay = 3.237
The longest path delay end pin:  co_8port_i\/peaz_i/aai_i/aai_test_2_a
+ai_tx_clk_sgb_2_inst/ff1/CK
The shortest path delay end pin: co_8port_i\/peaz_i/aai_i/aai_test_2_a
+ai_tx_clk_sgb_0_inst/ff1/CK

Clock: aai_rx_clk
Pin:   clkgate_i/peaz_gate2/S_5/Y
Net:   aai_rx_clk
Operating Condition     = worst
The clock global skew   = 0.349
The longest path delay  = 3.996
The shortest path delay = 3.647
The longest path delay end pin:  co_8port_i\/peaz_i/LOCKUP/GN
The shortest path delay end pin: co_8port_i\/peaz_i/aai_i/atm_path_i\/
+rx_path_i\/rxpram_reg_i\/ar_hec_cnt_reg[3]/CK
[download]

...by the "skew" value for each clock. The end result should display all the text in the same format--e.g. 9 lines for each clock--only in a new order. Here is the code to accomplish that...

open (SUM2,">$ARGV[0].sum.sorted");

my @records;
{
        local $/ = /\n\n/;
        open IN2, "$ARGV[0].sum" or die "Cannot open data file.\n$!";
        while ( my $record = <IN2> ) {
                my @kv_pairs = split /\n/, $record;
                push @records, [@kv_pairs];
        }
        close IN2;
}

print STDERR 'Record count: ', scalar @records;

my @sorted_recs = map { $_->[0] }
                  sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] }
                  map { [ $_, (split /=\s+/,$_->[4])[1] ] }
                  @records;

foreach my $records ( @sorted_recs ) {
        foreach my $record ( @{$records} ) {
                print SUM2 $record;
        }
        print SUM2 "\n";
}

close (IN2);
close (SUM2);
[download]