Others have given able comments on how to do this sort. May I take a different tack? I suspect you are forming the text1, text2... with code that looks something like this: 
my $counter = 1;
foreach (lameExcuse()){
  $token = 'text' . $counter++;
  doSomethineWith($token)}

[download]
And later you're having to sort these tokens. If you instead 
my $token = 'text00001';
foreach (lameExcuse()){
    doSomethineWith($token++)}

[download]
You'll generate tokens text00001 text00002 text00003... which sort quite nicely up to 100K tokens.

throop

Actually, it works OK beyond 100K; you just roll over to 'texu00000'

In reply to Re: sorting numbered words by throop
in thread sorting numbered words by Anonymous Monk

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