@mapped = ("Account Entity Unit Jan Feb Mar", "Account01 Entity01 Unit01 1 2 3", "Account01 Entity01 Unit01 4 5 6", "Account01 Entity01 Unit01 7 8 9", "Account02 Entity02 Unit02 10 11 12"); my %group_by; my @titles = split ' ', @mapped; foreach (@mapped) { #print $_."\n"; my @parts = split; #print @parts."\n"; my %hash; @hash{ @titles } = @parts; #don't get it for(qw(Jan Feb Mar)){ $group_by{join ' ', @hash{qw(Account Entity Unit)}}{ $_ } +=+ $hash{ $_ }; #don't get it either } } use Data::Dump 'dd'; dd \%group_by;