my %name2number; open DATA, "query.txt" or die "$!"; $/ = "\n"; while () { my ($key, $value) = (split); $name2number{$key} = $value; } for my $name (@orf) { my $number; if ($name2number{$name}) { $number = $name2number{$name}; } else { $number = 999; } print "$name => $number\n"; }