my ($s1,$n,$s2,$v2,undef) = split ';',$_,5; #### {"ip":["2.3.4.5","2.3.4.5"],"id":"2","host":"www.cnn.com"} {"ip":["3.4.5.6","1.2.4.5"],"id":"4","host":"www.google.com"} {"ip":["1.2.3.4"],"id":"1","host":"www.example.com"} {"ip":["3.4.5.6"],"id":"3","host":"www.google.com"} {"ip":["2.3.4.5"],"id":"2","host":"www.example2.com"} #### {"id":"1","Answer":[{"ip":"1.2.3.4"}],"host":"www.example.com"} {"id":"2","Answer":[{"ip":"2.3.4.5"},{"ip":"2.3.4.5"}],"host":"www.cnn.com"} {"id":"3","Answer":[{"ip":"3.4.5.6"}],"host":"www.google.com"} {"id":"4","Answer":[{"ip":"3.4.5.6"},{"ip":"1.2.4.5"}],"host":"www.google.com"} {"id":"2","Answer":[{"ip":"2.3.4.5"}],"host":"www.example2.com"} #### #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use JSON; open my $fh, '<', 'file2' or die $!; my %query; while (<$fh>) { chomp; my (undef, $cat, $id, undef, $val) = split /;/; if ($cat eq 'Query') { if (%query) { output(\%query); %query = (); } $query{$id} = [$val]; } else { push @{ $query{$id} }, {ip => $val}; } } output(\%query); sub output { my $query = shift; my ($id) = keys %$query; my $host = shift @{ $query->{$id} }; print encode_json({Answer => $query->{$id}, id => $id, host => $host}),"\n"; }