I'm not sure I understand what you're saying?... Let's say I have the following

Um, that is not an array, or three arrays, you can't sort that. I too am completely unsure of what you're asking about. Does this help? 

#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict; use warnings;
use Data::Dump;
Main( @ARGV );
exit( 0 );
sub Main {
    my @choice = Ply( 0, 0, 0 );
    dd\@choice;
    push @choice, Ply( 1, 1, 1 );
    push @choice, Ply( 2, 2, 3 );
    dd\@choice;
    print "Combinations ", int( @choice ),"\n";
    print "Materials ", CountMaterials( \@choice ),"\n";
}

sub CountMaterials {
    my( $co ) = @_;
    my %seen;
    for my $item ( @$co ){
        my $mat = $item->[0];
        $seen{ $mat }++;
    }
    return scalar keys %seen;
}
BEGIN {
    my @Thickness = ( "0.0077","0.0147","0.0054");
    my @Material =  ( "PW","8HS","Tape");
    my @Orientation = ("-45","0","45","90");
    sub Ply {
        my( $mat, $thi, $ori ) = @_;
        return [
            $Material[ $mat ],
            $Thickness[ $thi ],
            $Orientation[ $ori ],
        ];
    }
}
__END__
[["PW", 0.0077, -45]]
[["PW", 0.0077, -45], ["8HS", 0.0147, 0], ["Tape", 0.0054, 90]]
Combinations 3
Materials 3

[download]

All you have to do is write a function to query the target option menu and return an array like CountMaterials expects

In reply to Re^3: Create an array from Optionmenu variables by Anonymous Monk
in thread Create an array from Optionmenu variables by shortyfw06

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