#### use strict; use warnings; my %h; while () { chomp; ($a,$b) = split; if ($a eq 'a') { $h{a} ||= $b; } elsif ($a eq 'b') { print $b - $h{a}, $/; %h = (); } } __DATA__ a 123 a 125 b 127 a 129 a 130 b 131 a 132 b 133 #### ####