use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dump; my %hash; my $curkey; while () { chomp; if (/^>(\w+)$/) { $curkey = $1; } elsif ( my ($data,$low,$high) = /^\s*(\w+)\s+(\d+)\s*\.\.\s*(\d+)\s*$/ ) { die "value seen before header: '$_'" unless defined $curkey; push @{ $hash{$curkey} }, { data=>$data, low=>$low, high=>$high }; } else { die "don't know how to parse: '$_'" } } dd \%hash; __DATA__ >key1 Foo 10 .. 20 Bar 11 .. 21 >key2 Quz 30 .. 40 Baz 37 .. 45