If You insist on "sort" here is my way to do it:
for the database as 
1 2 3 |10
a b c |20
e f g |100
x n f |1

[download]
the code 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my %H;
open(R,"database");
 map {/\|(\d+)/; $H{$1}=$_ if $1}<R>;
close(R);
 foreach (sort {$a<=>$b} keys %H){print $H{$_}}

[download]
does exactly: 
x n f |1
1 2 3 |10
a b c |20
e f g |100

[download]
Enjoy...

In reply to Re: Sorting issues by zeidrik
in thread Sorting issues by Stamp_Guy

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