The changes needed to make the sub sort arrays are minor: 
use Test::More qw/no_plan/;

my @unsorted = (
    [ qw/1  3  5  6  2/ ],
    [ qw/3  4  5  6  7/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/5  6  7  8  8/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/2  2  2  2  2/ ],
    [ qw/1  1  2  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/2  3  4  5  6/ ],
);

my @expected = (
    [ qw/1  1  2  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  3  5  6  2/ ],
    [ qw/2  2  2  2  2/ ],
    [ qw/2  3  4  5  6/ ],
    [ qw/3  4  5  6  7/ ],
    [ qw/5  6  7  8  8/ ],
);

my @sorted = sortSub(\@unsorted, 0, 1, 3); # sort by first, second & f
+ourth columns

is_deeply \@sorted, \@expected;

sub sortSub {
    my @array = @{ +shift };

    return sort {
        for my $ix ( @_ ) {
            my $cmp = $a->[$ix] <=> $b->[$ix];
            return $cmp if $cmp;
        }
        return 0;
    } @array;
}

[download]

I think you're calling the first column 1, whereas Perl considers the first column to be 0. In that case you'll need adjust the column numbers accordingly.

In reply to Re^5: How would I sort a two-dimensional array by multiple columns? by FunkyMonk
in thread How would I sort a two-dimensional array by multiple columns? by dbmathis

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