use strict; my @files = <*.in>; for my $file (@files) { open my $read, '<', $file; open my $write, '>', "$file.log"; my $scid; my @lines; while(<$read>) { @lines = split('', $_); if($. == 3) { $scid = substr $_, 72,6; print $write "$scid\n"; } } #check where files match close($read); }