With Sort::Key it can be done as follows:

use Sort::Key qw(ikeysort);
my @unordered = (qw/very_long short/);
my @ordered = ikeysort { length } @unordered;
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or also...

use Sort::Key::Maker sort_len => sub { length } , qw(integer);
my @unordered = (qw/very_long short/);
my @ordered = sort_len @unordered;
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