Here is one approach that may work:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my @array = (
    [ 1, 'chuck',  'z' ],
    [ 2, 'paul',   'b' ],
    [ 3, 'adam',   'c' ],
    [ 4, 'rob',    'p' ],
    [ 5, 'julius', 'w' ],
    [ 6, 'bryan',  't' ]
);

foreach my $i ( sort { $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] } @array ) {
    print join( " - ", @{$i} ), "\n";
}
[download]

If it were a numeric comparison, the cmp above would be replaced by the "spaceship operator" ( '<=>' ).

When run, the following results were obtained:

3 - adam - c
6 - bryan - t
1 - chuck - z
5 - julius - w
2 - paul - b
4 - rob - p
[download]

Hope that helps.

Update: 05 Feb 2005

Changed variable in loop from $a to $i, to avoid confusion with the variables used by sort.

While you are at it, do as Fletch suggested. Read up on perl data structures. They are, after all, the very basis of most all further perl learning.

Erm, could you be more vauge because I almost understood you're trying to sort something. Lacking more detail (such as an example of what you expect your sorted two element array to look like) the only thing answer you're probably going to get is some variation on "read perldoc -q sort".