First, why not use the power/native utility of the database to sort w/an ORDER BY clause? (see second code snippet for setting $field) 
my $sql = "SELECT bug_id, owner, subject, status, assigned FROM BUGS O
+RDER BY $field";

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Second, i personally would prefer selectall_hashref .. simplifies the database retrieval, and makes the sorting clearer and trivial .. (also just a hash works instead of a "switch") 
my $bugTable = $dbh->selectall_hashref("SELECT bug_id, owner, subject,
+ status, assigned FROM BUGS");
my %numSorts = ( 1=>'bug_id' );
my %strSorts = ( 2=>'owner', 3=>'subject', 4=>'status', 5=>'assigned' 
+);
my $input = <STDIN>;
chomp $input;
my @srtArr = keys %$bugTable;
if( exists $strSorts{$input} ){
  my $k = $strSorts{$input};
  @srtArr = sort { $bugTable->{$a}->{$k} cmp $bugTable->{$b}->{$k} } @
+srtArr;
}elsif( exists $numSorts{$input} ){
  my $k = $numSorts{$input};
  @srtArr = sort { $bugTable->{$a}->{$k} <=> $bugTable->{$b}->{$k} } @
+srtArr;
}
print " @{$bugTable->{$_}} \n" for @strArr;

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In reply to Re: sorting a database table with primary keys by davidrw
in thread sorting a database table with primary keys by pengwn

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