Understood... thank you! In steps 4,5,6 I am having syntax issues. Is the sorted array on the right? @unsotrted = sort {$b <=> $a } @sorted; Here is my code:

#use diagnostics;
use warnings;
use strict;

my $file    = qq(/var/adm/sa/vm);
my $vmout   = qq(/var/adm/sa/vm.out);
my $cpuout  = qq(/var/adm/sa/cpu.out); 
my $art     = qq(/var/adm/sa/arout);    
my @ar = (); 
my @ar2 = ();
open (FILE, "<$file") || die "unable to open file $!";
open (MEMOUT, ">>$vmout") || die "unable to open file $!";
open (CPOUT, ">>$cpuout") || die "unable to open file $!";

while (<FILE>) {
        local $, = "\n";
        s/id//, s/wa//, print CPOUT push @ar, +(split)[16], $,;
        s/id//, s/wa//, print MEMOUT +(split)[4], $,;
}

close (MEMOUT) or warn "unable to close file $!";
close (CPOUT) or warn "unable to close file $!";
close (FILE) or warn "unable to close file $!";


@ar = sort { $a <=> $b } @ar;
print "Now printing array 1\n", @ar;
[download]