Interesting:
$ perl -MO=Deparse,x7 -e'sort { $a cmp $b } @x'
sort @x;
-e syntax OK
$ perl -MO=Deparse,x7 -e'sort { $b cmp $a } @x'
sort @x;
-e syntax OK
$ perl -MO=Deparse,x7 -e'sort { $a <=> $b } @x'
sort @x;
-e syntax OK
$ perl -MO=Deparse,x7 -e'sort { $b <=> $a } @x'
sort @x;
-e syntax OK
So far it looks as though
B::Deparse is broken.
$ perl -MO=Deparse,x7 -e'sort { $a->[0] cmp $b->[0] } @x'
sort {$$a[0] cmp $$b[0];} @x;
-e syntax OK
Obviously, it is not. Looks rather like Perl has builtins for all the common cases, then.
Makeshifts last the longest.