#!/bin/perl my @array = qw(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12); my $counter = 1; my $data; for my $pos (0 .. $#array) { print $array[$pos],"\n"; push @{$data->{$counter}}, $array[$pos]; if ($counter == 4) { $counter = 1; } else { $counter++; } }; use Data::Dumper; print Dumper($data); #### 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 $VAR1 = { '4' => [ '4', '8', '12' ], '1' => [ '1', '5', '9' ], '3' => [ '3', '7', '11' ], '2' => [ '2', '6', '10' ] };