I think your question are answered... replace, or initialize scalar variable with an array, to change to array context... (all sort function samples use array context)

use Data::Dumper;
 $Data::Dumper::Indent=0;

 my @x = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 );
 my $x = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 );
 my $y = [];
        @$y = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 );

  print Dumper(\@x, $x, $y );
__END__

$VAR1 = [
  '1',
  '2',
  '3',
  '4',
  '5'
];
$VAR2 = undef;
$VAR3 = [
  '1',
  '2',
  '3',
  '4',
  '5'
];
[download]

But my question... Why don't use mysql todo it as I fetchall_arrayref it from MySQL ?!

In my concepts... use perl always... when Perl Power is needs!