Thank you chromatic for answering my last question. I am working with a frameworks that one of the developers had made, so I don't have a lot of flexibility in declaring the input and output parameters. So what I need to do is sort an array that has been created using the following code: 
while(<INPUT_FILE>)
{
  my ($symbol,$side,$account,$shares) = split(',');
  if ($side eq 'BL')
  {
    $side = 'BUY';
  {
  push(@$outputRef, "$symbol,$side,$account,$shares") 
}

[download]
So I tried using the following: 
   my (@sorted) = sort{
              $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]
              ||
              $a->[1] cmp $b->[1]
              ||
              $a->[2] cmp $b->[2]
              } @$outputRef;

[download]
When I try to run it, i get an error that says: 
"Can't use string "IBM,BUY,K226110,2700" as an ARRAY ref while "strict
+ refs" in use...

[download]

It also doesn't like it when I try to take out the "$" from the @$outputRef.

I need to sort this array by $symbol,$side,$account. Is there any way around this?

In reply to Sorting a referrenced array and need to sort by specific fields. by brentheigold

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.