Hi skins96,

A couple of comments:

1. You have a stray "<br>" in your code.
2. You might want to use Data::Dumper, to display intermediate results.
3. You probably want to put my @data = (); outside of your loop, so it stays in scope afterwards; I'm sure this was causing you some headaches (which Data::Dumper will often help you catch quickly).

In order to see what what going on, I added some debugging to your program:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w 
use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

# use Lingua::EN::NameCase qw( nc );
 
#Where the files are located...
my $Location = 'z:/bpermits/data2007/test/marchpermits.txt';
my $OutFile  = 'z:/bpermits/data2007/test/output.txt';

# Debugging -- I don't have a Z: drive :) (and $OutFile isn't used)
$Location = "./m.txt";

#Open the files......
open(PERMSIN, $Location) or die "unable to open $Location: $!";

#Read in the file, using a loop........
my @columns = qw(
    Permit_Number Street_Number Street_Prefix Street_Name Street_Suffi
+x Lot
    Block Issue_Date Proposed_Use_Code Permission_To_Code Square_Feet
    Estimated_Cost Units Subdivision Zoning Contractor_Name Contractor
+_Add1
    Contractor_Add2 Contractor_City Contractor_State Contractor_Zip 
    Contractor_Phone1 Contractor_Phone2 Owner_Name Owner_Add1 Owner_Ad
+d2
    Owner_City Owner_State Owner_Zip Owner_Phone
);

# Debugging -- I don't have time to make up all those values :-/
@columns = qw(
    Permit_Number Street_Number Estimated_Cost 
);


my @data = ();
while( my $line = <PERMSIN> ) {
    chomp( $line );
        
    # Populate the hash %thisrecord with the column names and
    # the values from this line.
    #
    my @fields = split( /,/, $line );
    my %thisrecord = map { $columns[$_] => $fields[$_] } ( 0 .. $#fiel
+ds );
    push @data, \%thisrecord;
}

# Debugging -- look at the data before it's sorted
print Dumper(\@data), "\n";
print "Unsorted costs:  ";
map { print $_->{ Estimated_Cost } . ", " } @data;
print "\n\n";

# Here's the sort you want!
@data = sort { $a->{ Estimated_Cost } <=> $b->{ Estimated_Cost } } @da
+ta; 

# Debugging -- look at the data after it's sorted
print Dumper(\@data), "\n";
print "Sorted costs:  ";
map { print $_->{ Estimated_Cost } . ", " } @data;
print "\n\n";
[download]

And used a smaller data file (only 3 columns):

1,132,1984
2,93,1748
3,92,1372
4,73,2948
5,83,3105
6,13,1299
7,28,1301
8,35,1305
9,47,1091
[download]

This yields the following results, which is what I think you're looking for:

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'Street_Number' => '132',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1984',
            'Permit_Number' => '1'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '93',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1748',
            'Permit_Number' => '2'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '92',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1372',
            'Permit_Number' => '3'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '73',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '2948',
            'Permit_Number' => '4'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '83',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '3105',
            'Permit_Number' => '5'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '13',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1299',
            'Permit_Number' => '6'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '28',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1301',
            'Permit_Number' => '7'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '35',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1305',
            'Permit_Number' => '8'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '47',
            'Estimated_Cost' => '1091',
            'Permit_Number' => '9'
          }
        ];

Unsorted costs:  1984, 1748, 1372, 2948, 3105, 1299, 1301, 1305, 1091,

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'Street_Number' => '47',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1091,
            'Permit_Number' => '9'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '13',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1299,
            'Permit_Number' => '6'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '28',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1301,
            'Permit_Number' => '7'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '35',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1305,
            'Permit_Number' => '8'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '92',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1372,
            'Permit_Number' => '3'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '93',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1748,
            'Permit_Number' => '2'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '132',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 1984,
            'Permit_Number' => '1'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '73',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 2948,
            'Permit_Number' => '4'
          },
          {
            'Street_Number' => '83',
            'Estimated_Cost' => 3105,
            'Permit_Number' => '5'
          }
        ];

Sorted costs:  1091, 1299, 1301, 1305, 1372, 1748, 1984, 2948, 3105,
[download]

It's quite verbose, but I think you can see how I was able to quickly debug it.  Just take out my debugging sections, and you should have a viable solution.

Oh, and by the way, your Perl code is fairly impressive for a self-proclaimed "newbie".  I couldn't wrap my mind around map until I'd been using Perl for quite a while :-)

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