my @seq_data; open(SEQ,'<',$sequence_fname)||die "Cannot open sequence file\n"; while () { push @seq_data, [split /\t/]; } close SEQ; if(!($permute)){ for (@seq_data) { my @line = @$_; ... } ... { else{ open(OUT,">>$out")||die "Cannot open $out\n"; for (...) { ... for (@seq_data) { my @line = @$_; ... } foreach my $key(keys %ktc){ ... print OUT ... ... } } close OUT; }