note Lotus1 <blockquote><i>Sorry, but only comparing words with those that come after it alphabetically doesn't work.</i></blockquote> <p>True, but in the solution I posted I sort by length after the alphabetical sort. The alphabetical sort is probably overkill but needed for this particular solution.</p> <c> chomp (my @words = sort { length($a) <=> length($b) } sort <DATA>);</c> 928877 928934