I suspect this could be somehow shorter and trickier, but here's something fairly straight forward: 
use strict;
my @totals = ([ 3, 4 ],[ 1, 2 ]);

my %hash;
for my $i (0..$#totals) {
 my $aref = $totals[$i];
 for my $j (0..$#{$totals[$i]}) {
  $hash{"$i,$j"}=$totals[$i][$j];
 }
}
my @sorted = sort { $hash{$a} <=> $hash{$b} } keys %hash;
my @ranks;
my $rank = 0;
for (@sorted) {
 my ($i, $j) = split(/,/);
 $ranks[$i][$j] = ++$rank;
}
for my $i (0..@ranks) {
 for my $j (0..$#{$ranks[$i]}) {
  print "$i $j $ranks[$i][$j]\n";
 }
}

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In reply to Answer: I need to sort a 2D list. by runrig

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