You need to write a sub (dictionary?) to pass to sort. Here's an attempt, based on your short explanation... 
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;

sub dictionary {
  dictionary_case(lc $a,lc $b) || dictionary_case($a,$b)
}

sub dictionary_case {
  my @a = split /(\d+)/, $_[0];
  my @b = split /(\d+)/, $_[1];
  my $lex = 1;
  for(;;) {
    my $x = shift @a;
    my $y = shift @b;
    if (! defined $x) {
      return -(defined $y);
    }
    elsif (! defined $y) {
      return +1;
    }
    my $c = $lex ? $x cmp $y : $x <=> $y;
    $lex = !$lex;
    return $c if $c;
  }
  return 0;
}

print join "\n",
  sort dictionary (qw(X10y x9y x bigboy y x11y bigbang bigBoy)),
  "\n";

[download]
It probably doesn't do what you'd expect for comparing "bigboy" and "big9boys", but your specification seems quiet on the subject...

In reply to Re: Dictionary-style sort a la Tcl? by ariels
in thread Dictionary-style sort a la Tcl? by argathin

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