I am trying to do this on a larger scale with a new file with hashes.

Ultimately, I am trying to learn how to create a hash to sort data by a specific column from a text file. I would also like to learn how to parse data from a text file using hashes.

Tux has already pointed out the better tool: Text::CSV. It will handle all of the details people forget about when dealing with delimited files like what you have. Assuming the first line of the file has a list of column names, you'll end up with something like: 
use strict;
use warnings;
use Text::CSV;
# I had to specify "XS" in the use line and in the call to new, below
#use Text::CSV_XS;

open my $fh, '<', 'filename.txt'
        or die "Cannot open filename.txt: $!\n";

my $parser = Text::CSV->new({ sep_char => '|' });
$parser->column_names($parser->getline($fh));

# $parser->getline_hr_all() returns a reference to an array;
# which is easy enough to use, but the @{...} syntax unpacks
# it to an array, which you might find convenient
my @rows = @{$parser->getline_hr_all($fh)};
close $fh;

# sort can take a block of code to specify how things should
# be sorted, which in your case would be "by which columns"
# use cmp for string sort; <=> for numeric sort, and
# Unicode::Collate ( https://metacpan.org/pod/Unicode::Collate )
# for anything complex

for my $row (sort { $a->{col_name} cmp $b->{col_name} } @rows) {
    ...
}


for my $row (sort { $a->{number} <=> $b->{number} } @rows) {
    ...
}

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In reply to Re^3: Reading Text File into Hash to Parse and Sort by Anonymous Monk
in thread Reading Text File into Hash to Parse and Sort by Perl_Derek

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