Re: Why didn't this sort?

A guess (since you didn't include much code) - foreach is creating a sorted list of members of your array, not actually sorting your array. An example:

@array=(2, 3, 1, 0);
foreach (sort @array){
  print "$_ - ";
}
print "\n";
print join " - ", @array;
print "\n";
@array = sort @array;
print join " - ", @array;

__END__
Output:
0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - (printed in loop)
2 - 3 - 1 - 0   (after loop, still unsorted)
0 - 1 - 2 - 3   (after sorting, now sorted)

Notice @a prints as if it is sorted in the loop, but after the loop it is still unsorted. If you want the array sorted, @array = sort @array; will work.