use strict;
use warnings;

my @array=qw(Q W E R T Y U I O P);
my @sorted_meta=sort { $a->[0] cmp $b->[0] } map { [ $array[$_] , $_ ] } 0..$#array;
my @sorted=map { $_->[0] } @sorted_meta;

local $,=" ";
local $\="\n";
print "Orig: ",@array;
print "Meta: ",map { ("[",@{$_},"]") } @sorted_meta;
print "Sort: ",@sorted;
__END__
Outputs:
Orig:  Q W E R T Y U I O P
Meta:  [ E 2 ] [ I 7 ] [ O 8 ] [ P 9 ] [ Q 0 ] [ R 3 ] [ T 4 ] [ U 6 ] [ W 1 ] [ Y 5 ]
Sort:  E I O P Q R T U W Y