It gets simpler if you normalize the data in the first step. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @unordered = (
  '12 Corinthians 5:10',
  'Hebrews 11:15',
  '1 Corinthians 13:23',
  '2 Corinthians 1:3',
  'John 3:16',
  '1 Corinthians 12:10',
  '1 Corinthians 2:10',
  '1 Corinthians 2:10'
);

my @ordered = map { $_->[0] }
sort {
    $a->[1] cmp $b->[1]
}
map { [ $_, sprintf("%05d %-20s %04d %04d",/^\d/?():(99999), split(/[ 
+:]/)) ] }
@unordered;

print join "\n", @ordered;
exit;

[download]

By adding the 

/^\d/?():(99999)

[download]

and sprintf'ing the string so it compares lexicographically, you're in good shape, I think.

If you had a huge set of data to work with, you might want to do it this way instead, which I think might be faster (and might be the GR transform, I'm not sure): 

# ...
my @ordered = map { (split /\t/)[1] }
sort {
    $a cmp $b
}
map { 
  sprintf("%05d %-20s %04d %04d",
          /^\d/?():(99999), 
          split(/[ :]/))
  ."\t$_" 
}
@unordered;
# ...

[download]

Make sense?
--
Mike

(Edit: removed debugging prints from sort block)

In reply to Re: Inconsistent column Schwartzian Transform attempt by RMGir
in thread Inconsistent column Schwartzian Transform attempt by gryphon

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