I plead "insufficient data" to solve your problem. There's too much left out of the code. Let me comment on the code to indicate why I think so. In what follows, I have adjusted the indentation to match what I'm used to. It helps me to understand the flow. 

##################
sub reordermenu {
##################

  accesscheck();

  @menuitems = Cobra::chomp_database("$datadir/defaults/menu.dat", "0"
+);

  open (DATABASE,"<$datadir/defaults/menu.dat");
  hold (DATABASE);
  @menuitems = <DATABASE>;
  release (DATABASE);
  close (DATABASE);

[download]
There's a lot missing here. access_check(), hold() and release() all seem to have obvious meanings, but what the heck does Cobra::chomp_database() do in relation to what follows? It probably doesn't matter, though. 
 MENUITEM: for ($ndx=0; $ndx<= $#menuitems; $ndx++) {
    ($fid,$fmenu_type,$fmenu_show,$fmenu_filename,
      $fmenu_name,$fmenu_icon)=split(/\|/,$menuitems[$ndx]);
    if ($fid eq $info{'m_id'}) {
      last MENUITEM;
    }
  }

[download]
The MENUITEM label is superfluous, since there's only the one loop. The if block could be recast in typical Perl postfix style as: 
    last if ($fid eq $info{'m_id'});

[download]
Next we have: 
  $swap=false;
  if ($m_action eq "moveup" && $ndx != 0) {
    $tondx = $ndx - 1;
    $swap=true;
    
  } elsif ($m_action eq "movedown" && $ndx != $#menuitems) {
    $tondx = $ndx + 1;
    $swap=true;
  }

[download]
OK, where does "$m_action" come from? Do we really just swap once in this sub? Are you loading the entire database and saving it for just one swap? Something seems to be missing.

In reply to Re: Re-ordering items by $id from a flat file by hbo
in thread Re-ordering items by $id from a flat file by Migey

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