knowmad,
Actually, you can avoid the ST all together, which should be even faster. 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @advocates = (
  {fld_title => 'Rec1', fld_type => 'National'},
  {fld_title => 'Rec2', fld_type => 'State'   },
  {fld_title => 'Rec3', fld_type => 'Local'   }
);
my %order =  (LOCAL => 'A', STATE => 'B', NATIONAL => 'C');
my @sorted = sort { $order{uc $a->{fld_type}} cmp $order{uc $b->{fld_t
+ype}}
                          ||
                   $a->{fld_title} cmp $b->{fld_title} } @advocates;

print "$_->{fld_title}\n" for @sorted;

[download]
Cheers - L~R

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Efficiently sorting array by non-alpha strings by Limbic~Region
in thread Efficiently sorting array by non-alpha strings by knowmad

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