#!usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper); my @car_list = (); open(INPFIL,"cars.dat") || die("Couldnt open the file \n"); while() { if(/^\s*CARS\s*[A-Z]/) { my ($car)=$_=/^\s*CARS\s*(\w+)/; push(@car_list,$car); } } print Dumper @car_list; exit;