use strict; use warnings; my %required = map { $_ => 1 } 63, 66, 69, 72, 73, 74, 95, 96, 98, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 159, 162, 172, 173, 175, 177, 178, 197, 198, 201, 210, 225, 232, 237, 240, 243, 246, 247; open my $CONTACT0, "<", "Contactmap00_0.txt" or die "unable to open Contactmap00_0.txt $!";; while () { chomp; my @line = split (//, $_); print "$_: Not a match\n" and next unless exists $required{$line[1]}; # your other conditions here ... }