#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; while () { my @flds = split; if ( $flds[0].$flds[1] eq 'N/AN/A' ) { print "nana: $flds[2]\n"; } elsif ( $flds[0] eq 'N/A' ) { print "na1: $flds[2]\n"; } elsif ( $flds[1] eq 'N/A' ) { print "na2: $flds[2]\n"; } else { print "no na: $flds[2]\n"; } } __DATA__ 1234 5678 no_nas_here blah blah 1234 N/A should_be_na2 blah blah N/A 5678 must_be_na1 blah blah N/A N/A nana