my @sorted =  sort NetWallahSort   @unsorted;
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Sorry NetWallah, I was refering to Funk's code. I saw your previous comment, however your code appears to be sorting all depths and I need "sortRoutine(@array, 2, 1, 4, 5) for example.

I have an existing piece of code that has an array of arrays that needs to be sorted like this and Funk's code was sorting an array of refs.

The changes needed to make the sub sort arrays are minor:

use Test::More qw/no_plan/;

my @unsorted = (
    [ qw/1  3  5  6  2/ ],
    [ qw/3  4  5  6  7/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/5  6  7  8  8/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/2  2  2  2  2/ ],
    [ qw/1  1  2  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/2  3  4  5  6/ ],
);

my @expected = (
    [ qw/1  1  2  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  2  3  4  5/ ],
    [ qw/1  3  5  6  2/ ],
    [ qw/2  2  2  2  2/ ],
    [ qw/2  3  4  5  6/ ],
    [ qw/3  4  5  6  7/ ],
    [ qw/5  6  7  8  8/ ],
);

my @sorted = sortSub(\@unsorted, 0, 1, 3); # sort by first, second & f
+ourth columns

is_deeply \@sorted, \@expected;

sub sortSub {
    my @array = @{ +shift };

    return sort {
        for my $ix ( @_ ) {
            my $cmp = $a->[$ix] <=> $b->[$ix];
            return $cmp if $cmp;
        }
        return 0;
    } @array;
}
[download]

I think you're calling the first column 1, whereas Perl considers the first column to be 0. In that case you'll need adjust the column numbers accordingly.