#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @array = (); while (){ chomp($_); my @subarray = split(/,/,$_); push @array, [@subarray]; } my @sorted = sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[0] } #by parent sort { $a->[0] <=> $b->[0] } #by id @array; for my $x(0..$#sorted){ print "$sorted[$x][0]:$sorted[$x][1] - $sorted[$x][3]\n"; } #id,parent,stamp,text __DATA__ 1,0,2006-01-02 08:15:00,test line 1 (first) 2,1,2006-01-02 08:16:00,test line 2 (second) 3,2,2006-01-02 08:21:00,test line 3 (third) 6,1,2006-01-02 08:23:00,test line 6 (seventh) 4,1,2006-01-02 08:22:00,test line 4 (sixth) 7,6,2006-01-02 08:25:00,test line 7 (eighth) 5,3,2006-01-02 08:23:00,test line 5 (fourth) 8,1,2006-01-02 08:17:00,test line 8 (fifth)