Firstly parse the temp file 
open(my $fh, "tempfile") or die("ack - $!");
chomp( my $header = <$fh> );
my(undef, @headers) = split ' ', $header;

my(%cols) = do {
    my $i = 0;
    map { $_ => $i++ } @headers;
};

my %info;
while(<$fh>) {
    chomp;
    next if m< ^ \s* \z >x;
    my($name, @rows) = split;
    push @{ $info{$name} }, @rows;
}
close $fh;

[download]
Then sort on the 'z' column 
open(my $fh, ">", "output") or die("ack - $!");
print $fh $header;
print $fh "$_ @{ $info{$_} }\n" for reverse sort {
    $info{$a}->[ $cols{z} ] <=> $info{$b}->[ $cols{z} ]
} keys %info;
close $fh;

[download]
Of course a much better idea would be to use one of the CSV type modules such as tilly's Text::xSV or Text::CSV_XS.
HTH

_________
broquaint

update: changed header regex => split, as I had a bad meme about multiple matches pushing onto the return list, unfortunately not e.g 

my(@list) = "foo bar baz" =~ m< (?: (\w+) \s* )+ >x;
print "@list";

__ouput__

baz
# not - foo bar baz

[download]

update 2: posting on a Friday != a good idea 

my(@list) = "foo bar baz" =~ m< (\w+) [ ]? >xg;
print "@list";

__output__

foo bar baz

[download]
the previous example not working presumably because it was missing the g modifier, and the subsequent captures over-rode the previous one.

In reply to Re: File Sorting by broquaint
in thread File Sorting by rchou2

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