#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use warnings; my $File_Name = 'data.txt'; my %Aggr; open(FH, "< ./$File_Name") or die "couldn\'t open [$File_Name]\n".$!; my @Data = ; foreach my $line(@Data){ my @tmpRaw = split / /, $line; foreach my $Item(@tmpRaw){ chomp($Item); $Aggr{$Item}++; } } foreach my $key (sort keys %Aggr){ print $key.":".$Aggr{$key}."\n"; } close(FH);