Assuming each item is a record in an array, a Schwartzian will do the trick:

my @new_array =
    map  { $_->[0] }
    sort { $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] }
    map  { [ $_, get_sortable_item($_) ] }
        @old_array;

sub get_sortable_item {
    my $data = shift;
    return (split /:/, $data, 3)[1];
}

[download]

Cheers,
Ovid

Update: Whoa! According to timestamps, I'm half an hour late with this node, but I swear that reply wasn't there when I just posted. Hmm... Oh well.

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In reply to Re: Sorting comma-delimited records by Ovid
in thread Sorting colon-delimited records by venki

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