in reply to Re^2: Replace $a with $b if $a ne $b
in thread Replace $a with $b if $a ne $b

Does too matter. Try this code on perl 5.8.x. 
my $a = 1;
print((sort { $b cmp $a } qw( a b c z y x )), $/);
print($a, $/);  # Prints "1"

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