my $filename = 'Facs_Data.txt'; open my $fh, '<', $filename or die "Couldn't open '$filename': $!"; my @lines = map { /:([^\s]+)/ ? $1 : () } # take the stuff between the : and the first blank grep { /Acct:/ } <$fh>; # Read a file line by line and select the lines matching Acct: # do whatever with the values in @lines print "$_\n" for @lines;