I think this is what you want. It only uses enough memory to hold the data from one element number. It assumes the file is already sorted by element number and not just sorted ascii-betically. The data will be sorted on column 1 and then on column 9. 
use strict;
open (INFILE, "<filename") or die "could not open file";
open (OUTFILE, ">outfilename") or die "could not open outfile";

my $line = <INFILE>;
my @record = split " ", $line;
ELEMENT: while (defined $line) {
    my $element = $record[0];
    my @array;  
    push @array, [$line, $record[8]];
    while (1) {
        $line = <INFILE>;
        @record = split  " ", $line;
        if ($element == $record[0]) {
            push @array, [$line, $record[8]];
        }
        else {
            #sort using psudo-Schwartzian Transform
            @array = map {$_->[0]} 
                sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]} 
                @array;
            print OUTFILE @array;
            next ELEMENT;
        }
    }
}

[download]

--

flounder

In reply to Re: How can I read multiple lines starting with the same number and put in to a nested array and print it to a file? by flounder99
in thread How can I read multiple lines starting with the same number and put in to a nested array and print it to a file? by opolat

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.