If that is the problem (hard to tell from the post) then all you need is $" = '';

@in = (
    ['the cat sat'],
    ['the ', 'cat', 'sat'],
    ['the cat', 'sat'],
    ['the', 'cat', 'sat'],
);

{
    local $" = '';
    @out =  sort { "@$b" cmp "@$a" } @in;
}

use Data::Dumper;
# munge the output for compactness and to make it look nicer
$Data::Dumper::Indent = 0;
print map {s/\[/\n        \[/g; $_} Dumper \@out;

__DATA__
$VAR1 = 
        [
        ['the','cat','sat'],
        ['the ','cat','sat'],
        ['the cat','sat'],
        ['the cat sat']];
[download]

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.