No this won't work. It does not compile for a start but (to your credit) it looks like you have taken the time to do some reading and presented some code so you will now find help is forthcoming :-)

Here is some code to explain sort to you

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

@a = qw(z x c v b n m); # make a little array

sort @a;        # sorts @a but result discarded!
print "@a\n";   # thus @a not sorted here. Here's why:

print sort @a;  # prints the sorted @a array
print "\n@a\n"; # damn, still not stored sorted though!

@a = sort @a;   # assigns sorted result to @a
print "@a\n";   # as @a now contains sorted result...
                # this works!
[download]

Questions. As you mantion Win2000 I presume you using Win32 (Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000) to develop your code. If not what are you using? Do you have perl installed, and if so which distribution? -> ie ActiveState perl. If you have ActiveState perl use explorer to go to c:\perl\html\index.html and click-click -> this is the Perldoc. Are the spaces in the file names real? Spaces are non portable (ie most operating systems except Win32 don't like them - it is better_to_use_an_char_to_separate_your_words_to_make_the_filenames_easier_to_read. What do the xxxxx represent. Are they letters, numbers, spaces, _ chars, other characters (ie .) or some mix of these. Which mix?

Post the answers and then we can look at achieving your goal in a step by step manner.

tachyon