c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my @aa = qw( CORE1 CORE12 CORE8 CORE233 COREA11 COREA12 COREA130 COREA115 ); my @sorted = map { $_->[0] } sort { $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] } map { [ $_, s/(\d+)/sprintf \"%06d\", $1/ger ] } @aa; print qq{@sorted}; " CORE1 CORE8 CORE12 CORE233 COREA11 COREA12 COREA115 COREA130