use strict; use warnings; my @data = qw{ /path/some/random/file /home/mary/projectA/reports/rep1.prn /usr/man/man1/brewcoffee.1 /home/fred/projects/cv.prn /home/bill/work/prog.c }; my @arr = sort map { join q{/}, ( split m{/} )[ 0, 1 ] } @data; print qq{$_\n} for @arr; print q{-} x 20, qq{\n}; @arr = sort map { join q{/}, ( split m{/} )[ 0 .. 2 ] } @data; print qq{$_\n} for @arr; print q{-} x 20, qq{\n}; @arr = sort map { $_->[ 4 ] =~ s{.prn$}{}i ; join q{/}, @$_ } map { [ split m{/} ] } @data; print qq{$_\n} for @arr; print q{-} x 20, qq{\n}; @arr = sort map { $_->[ -1 ] =~ s{.prn$}{}i ; join q{/}, @$_ } map { [ split m{/} ] } @data; print qq{$_\n} for @arr; print q{-} x 20, qq{\n};