use warnings; use strict; my %animals_hash; while (my $line = ) { chomp $line; my ( $sums, $animal ) = split /\s+/, $line; $animals_hash{$animal} = $sums; } use Data::Dumper; $Data::Dumper::Sortkeys=1; print Dumper(\%animals_hash); __DATA__ 455 DOG 1074 BIRD 605 CAT 850 FISH