my $filename='out.txt'; my $output ='perl_output.txt'; if (-r $filename) { open(FILE, "< $filename"); open(OUTPUT, "> $output"); while() { chomp; if(/^(.*)Datasource:/){ print OUTPUT "\n\n", $_, "\n"; ... ... } close(FILE); close(OUTPUT); } else{ print("cant read file ",$filename,"\n"); }