As dHarry says, you're probably best off having the database sort your results.

If you want to get every row, use a DBI method that does that. For example:

$sth->execute( $line, $line ) or die ...;
my @all_rows = @{ $sth->fetchall_arrayref() };
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At that point, every element in @all_rows is an array reference. The first row is $all_rows[0]. The first column of the first row is $all_rows[0][0].

If you want, you can get an array of hash refs instead. I find these more useful because you can refer to the fields by name.

my @all_rows = @{ $sth->fetchall_arrayref( {} ) };
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In that case, $all_rows[0] is still the first row, but it's a hash ref instead. Then you can do $all_rows[0]{srcaddr} for that field in that row.

If you want to output the whole structure, Data::Dumper is good for that, or see How can I visualize my complex data structure?.

Krambambuli I followed your example and I get all rows/results correctly. Now the only problem/thing that I do not know how to deal with is the @{$row_ref} array? If I wanted to run the sorted code which runs against an array passing it the @{$row_ref} array does not work. I get an array code ARRAY(0x9019330) on the screen here is the code that I am using currently. Thanks for the help!!

foreach my $line (@lines) {
        $sth->execute($line, $line) or die "Can't execute SQL statemen
+t: $DBI::errstr\n";
        my @all_rows;
        while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref()) {
                push(@all_rows, $ref);
        }
        foreach my $row_ref (@all_rows) {
                print "@{$row_ref}\n";
        }
}
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Here is the sorting code that I use in a separate script which is what I am having trouble incorporating to the @{$row_ref} array. I am guessing that I can't use @{$row_ref} name when running my sort? Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

my @sorted = map {$_->[0]} sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1] ||
             $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] ||
             $a->[4] <=> $b->[4]} map {
             [$_, split(/\./, (split /\s+/, $_)[1])]} @lines;
print "$_\n" for @{$row_ref};
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sample of the sql output below. 2008-07-26 10.168.1.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK

It's also possible to let SQL do the sorting for you by using the ORDER BY clause.

Update:
I was wondering how big is the result set? Can you store that in memory?

Thanks for the quick reply. The results usually aren't big. Sorting in mysql query will not work since it will only sort for that one record not the final output. What I have done in the past is save all the resuls to a file then run another script which will sort based on the IP address in the results. Shown below. What I am hoping to do is eliminate having to run the second script and do the sorting and query on all one script(Also learn in the process). I am pretty new to Perl so I am still trying to work myself through some of the examples I find online. Here is the script which I use to sort the results.

my @lines this is array of the file being read in)

my @sorted = map {$_->[0]} sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1] || 
             $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] ||
             $a->[4] <=> $b->[4]} map {
             [$_, split(/\./, (split /\s+/, $_)[1])]} @lines;
print "$_\n" for @sorted;
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($line) = $sth->fetchrow_array()
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        while (($line) = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
                 push(@all_rows, $line);
        }
        foreach (@all_rows) {
                print "$_\n";
       }
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while ( (@record) = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
                 push(@all_rows, \@record);
        }
        foreach my $row_ref (@all_rows) {
                print "@{$row_ref}\n";
       }
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Krambambuli I followed your example and I get all rows/results correctly. Now the only problem/thing that I do not know how to deal with is the @{$row_ref} array? If I wanted to run the sorted code which runs against an array passing it the @{$row_ref} array does not work. I get an array code ARRAY(0x9019330) on the screen here is the code that I am using currently. Thanks for the help!!

foreach my $line (@lines) {
        $sth->execute($line, $line) or die "Can't execute SQL statemen
+t: $DBI::errstr\n";
        my @all_rows;
        while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref()) {
                push(@all_rows, $ref);
        }
        foreach my $row_ref (@all_rows) {
                print "@{$row_ref}\n";
        }
}
[download]

Here is the sorting code that I use in a separate script which is what I am having trouble incorporating to the @{$row_ref} array. I am guessing that I can't use @{$row_ref} name when running my sort? Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

my @sorted = map {$_->[0]} sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1] || 
             $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] || $a->[3] <=> $b->[3] ||
             $a->[4] <=> $b->[4]} map {
             [$_, split(/\./, (split /\s+/, $_)[1])]} @lines;
print "$_\n" for @{$row_ref};
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sample of the sql output below. 2008-07-26 10.168.1.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK

Try to see if the following code might help you:

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my @lines
    = ( '2008-07-26 13.168.1.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK'
+,
        '2008-07-26 10.169.1.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK'
+,
        '2008-07-26 10.168.2.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK'
+,
        '2008-07-26 10.168.1.1 11122 3.3.3.3 80 hxxp://3.3.3.3 200 OK'
+,
      );


my @sorted
    = map { $_->[0] }
          sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1]
                         ||
                 $a->[2] <=> $b->[2]
                         ||
                 $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
                         ||
                 $a->[4] <=> $b->[4]

               } map { [$_, split(/\./, (split /\s+/, $_)[1] ) ] }
                     @lines;

my @all_rows = map { [ split( /\s+/, $_ ) ] }
                   @lines;

my @sorted1
    = map { join( ' ', @{ $_->[0] } ) }
          sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1]
                         ||
                 $a->[2] <=> $b->[2]
                         ||
                 $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
                         ||
                 $a->[4] <=> $b->[4]

               } map { [$_, split(/\./, $$_[1] ) ] }
                 @all_rows;

print Dumper( @sorted1 );
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Krambambuli
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