#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; use Inline::Files; my %master_hash; my @filehandles = (\*FILE1, \*FILE2, \*FILE3); for (0 .. $#filehandles) { my $fh = $filehandles[$_]; my $wow_key = "wow$_"; while (<$fh>) { chomp; push @{$master_hash{$wow_key}{(split /\t/)[1]}}, 'sth'; } } use Data::Dump; dd \%master_hash; __FILE1__ x file1line1 x file1line2 __FILE2__ x file2line1 x file2line2 __FILE3__ x file3line1 x file3line2