; my @prev_line; while ( ) { my @this_line = split /[,\s]+/; shift @this_line; print join( ", ", map { "$this_line[$_]-$prev_line[$_]" } 0 .. $#this_line ), "\n" if @prev_line; @prev_line = @this_line; } __DATA__ date, val1, val2, val3, val4 1/2/2007, 1, 4, 5, 6 1/3/2007, 2, 5, 7, 10 1/5/2007, 5, 6, 8, 11 #### 2-1, 5-4, 7-5, 10-6 5-2, 6-5, 8-7, 11-10 #### ; my @prev_line; while ( ) { my @this_line = split /[,\s]+/; shift @this_line; if ( @prev_line ) { my @output; for ( 0 .. $#this_line ) { push @output, "$this_line[$_]-$prev_line[$_]"; } print join( ", ", @output ), "\n"; } @prev_line = @this_line; }