#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $header = ; my $pattern = ; my @lengths; push @lengths, length $1 while $pattern =~ /(\+-*)/g; my $template = join '', map "A$_", @lengths; my @names = unpack $template, $header; my @table; while (my $line = ) { substr $line, 0, 1, q(); # Remove the leading space. my %row; @row{@names} = unpack $template, $line; push @table, \%row; } print Dumper \@table; __DATA__ app db comment time blabla +--------+-----+----------+---------+------ one a rge 00:00:00 DFDF two b fghfjjf 00:00:00 fgfg three cc fjfjfj 00:00:00 fh four ddd fjgkk 00:00:00 tjku