If, as appears likely, the first field is an ID number (ie always the two letters 'ID' followed by a number), it would be nice to sort these numerically rather than ascibeticallly (ie with ID100 coming after rather than before ID20...).

Adapting the first answer given above, you could do this:

@data = sort { substr ($a->[0], 2) <=> substr ($b->[0], 2) ||
                           $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] } @data;

[download]

Meanwhile, I've downloaded the Data::Sorting module and have started playing with it, but haven't yet worked out how this would be done (although I'm sure it's simple :-).

dave

In reply to Re: Sorting complex records by Not_a_Number
in thread Sorting complex records by Anonymous Monk

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