Here is how I did it. I changed the keys in the original hash to strings so there was no confusion over sorting the keys vs sorting the first element of the array. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = (
            'a'    => [1, 'One'],
            'b'    => [2, 'Two'],
            'c'    => [3, 'Three'],
            'd'    => [4, 'Four'],
            'e'    => [5, 'Five'],
            'f'    => [6, 'Six'],
            'g'    => [12, 'Twelve'],
);

my %key_ht;
foreach my $key (keys %hash) { $key_ht{$hash{$key}[0]} = $key }

# print "key_ht:", Dumper(\%key_ht), "\n";

foreach my $key (sort { $a <=> $b } keys %key_ht) {

    my $num = $hash{$key_ht{$key}}[0];
    my $str = $hash{$key_ht{$key}}[1];
    print "Integer is: ", $num, " -- Alpha is: ", $str, "\n";
}

[download]
Update: the output I get is: 
Integer is: 1 -- Alpha is: One
Integer is: 2 -- Alpha is: Two
Integer is: 3 -- Alpha is: Three
Integer is: 4 -- Alpha is: Four
Integer is: 5 -- Alpha is: Five
Integer is: 6 -- Alpha is: Six
Integer is: 12 -- Alpha is: Twelve

[download]

In reply to Re: Effective sort method? by superfrink
in thread Effective sort method? by Elijah

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.