categorized answer QandAEditors <code> my @sorted= grep {s/(^|\D)0+(\d)/$1$2/g,1} sort grep {s/(\d+)/sprintf"%06.6d",$1/ge,1} @data; </code> See [id://24841] some important style comments. <p> Features and limitations: <ul><li>Strips extra leading zeros from digit strings </li><li>Doesn't handle floating point numbers at all well </li><li>Sorts negative integers in reverse after positive integers </li><li>Uses very little extra memory </li><li>You must specify the maximum number of digits your integers will have (6 in the above code) </li></ul> 68185