Dave,

One suggestion for your code, use eval's return value to create an sub rather than evaling the whole sort routine. Here is a quick example of the technique.

my $test = eval "sub { print 'hello world' }";
$test->(); # prints the ever-classic "hello world"
[download]

This way you can re-use your sort routine without the eval penalty again.

Regarding similar sorting techniques. I usually, like tilly, have used closures (although using closures somewhat differently than tilly).

my %hash = (    
    'Lisa'   => [ 'F',  6, 150, 'Blonde',  'Blue' ],
    'Homer'  => [ 'M', 40, 105,   'Bald',  'Blue' ],
    'Bart'   => [ 'M',  9, 120, 'Blonde', 'Brown' ],
    'Marge'  => [ 'F', 36, 135,   'Blue',  'Blue' ],
    'Maggie' => [ 'F',  1, 130, 'Blonde',  'Blue' ] 
);

sub createSortRoutine {
    my (@ordered_values) = @_;
    return sub {
        my ($left, $right) = @_;
        my $result;
        foreach (@ordered_values) {
            $result = ( ($hash{$left}->[$_] =~ /^\d+$/) ?
                 $hash{$left}->[$_] <=> $hash{$right}->[$_]
                 :
                 $hash{$left}->[$_] cmp $hash{$right}->[$_] )
                      unless $result;
        }
        return $result;
    };
}

my $sorter = createSortRoutine(0, 2, 3);

print join "\n" => sort { $sorter->($a, $b) } keys %hash;

# NOTE: this code not thoroughly tested, i lifted it from 
# and old module of mine and hacked it for this example.

__DATA__
Maggie
Marge
Lisa
Homer
Bart
[download]

I have not tried to eval a code string for this problem though, personally i was never a huge fan of that technique, although your example is a quite an interesting use of it. Cool stuff.

-stvn