How fancy you need to get is really a performance issue. The sort function takes in pairs of whatever the input list is, could be a list of anything. You provide a function that compares those "things".
sort @array, use perl $a cmp $b criteria for sort
sort {} @array, anon sub to provide decision function, returns <0,0,>0.
sort myorder @array. myorder is a sub that provides same <0,0,>0 return values.

Sticking some decision making inside the comparison function is not out of the question. I have an application that sorts some GUI columns. So I made a text or numeric comparison function so the low level's don't have to know what the data type is. This simplified the code. Most columns are alpha and this extra test in the compare really doesn't slow things down much - actually in this app, insignificant amount although my extra testing "looks" expensive. There is a fair amount of overhead in calling the comparison function but some easy "if" logic once you are there is not that expensive (your mileage may vary).

Anyway I would consider embedding your test for "PTR" into the a mysortfunc. test it and see if there is any significant difference. There is no need for: return sub { $a cmp $b }, the sub you are writing is the thing that will return <0,0,>0! Don't call an anon sub within your sub. Just get on with the job of returning the required value.

Oh, below I checked both $a and $b as there is some possibility of data corruption in this app. In your case, this appears to be unnecessary, just check one of them. Anyway, look at performance and you may find that something easier works very well. 

sub alpha_num_cmp {
   my($a, $b) = @_;
   if (( $a =~ m/\D/) || ($b =~ m/\D/) ) 
      {                      #look for a non-digit
        return ($a cmp $b);  #string compare
      }
   return ($a <=> $b); #straight numeric comparison
}
#used like: sort alpha_num_cmp @array;

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In reply to Re^3: Syntax question about closures and Perl 'sort' by Marshall
in thread Syntax question about closures and Perl 'sort' by dwm042

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