#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $filepath = "OP.txt"; my $olddata = readdt2($filepath,5,7); # 5x7 array print Dumper($olddata); # print the 1st row, 3rd column my $i = 1; my $j = 3; print "1st row, 3rd column: ",$olddata->[$i-1][$j-1],"\n"; sub readdt2 { my $ifn = shift; my $I = shift; my $J = shift; # open(my $IFH, "<$ifn") or die "cannot open file $ifn\n"; my $line; my @ret; my @tmp; for my $j (0 .. $I-1) { $line = ; chomp($line); @tmp = split(/\s+/,$line); push @{$ret[$j]},@tmp[0..$J-1]; } return(\@ret); } __DATA__ 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 #### push @{$ret[$j]}, @tmp[0..$J-1];