Here is a snippet to get you started on analyzing the Date:

use Date::Parse;
my ($x,$y)=split /\|/, 'Mon Oct 11 00:08:11 2004|12963';
print qq(x=$x\n);
my $t=str2time($x);
print qq(T=$t\n); 
#  OUPUT
##############
#  x=Mon Oct 11 00:08:11 2004
#  T=1097478491   ##in perl/unix time() format
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For the sorting, please look at

How do I sort a hash by its values?