Rather than complicated sorting routines, perhaps it would be preferable to set up a couple of "flags" depending on what type the string is and, consequently, what character to sort on then pack them along with the original string to do a GRT sort. This will not be stable for the last two categories if the strings share the same sorting character, at which point they will be sorted in ascending alpha.

use strict;
use warnings;

use 5.014;

my @strings = qw{
   cabin
   prawn
   pail
   error
   reptile
   engine
   copy
   echo
   soap
   eskimo
   carpet
   emblem
   skunk
   };

say for
   map  { substr $_, 8 }
   sort
   map  {
        my( $type, $ord );
        if ( m{r} )
        {
            $type = 0;
            $ord  = 0;
        }
        elsif ( m{^e} )
        {
            $type = 1;
            $ord  = ord substr $_, 2, 1;
        }
        else
        {
            $type = 2;
            $ord  = 255 - ord substr $_, -1, 1;
        }
        pack q{NNa*}, $type, $ord, $_;
        }
   @strings;

[download]

The output.

carpet
error
prawn
reptile
emblem
engine
echo
eskimo
copy
soap
cabin
pail
skunk

[download]

I hope this is of interest.

Update: Corrected statement re. stable sorting, s/first/last/

Cheers,

JohnGG

In reply to Re: How to perform different sorts on multiple sections of items in the same array by johngg
in thread How to perform different sorts on multiple sections of items in the same array by estreb

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.