I compile the prog using: perl prog.pl input.db result #!/usr/bin/perl my $input = $ARGV[0]; my $output = ">" . $ARGV[1]; my $counter=1; open(INPUT, $input) or die "Can't open $input."; open(OUTPUT, $output) or die "Can't open $output."; $/="\/\/\n"; # Use shorthand for reading file. while (<>) { print OUTPUT $_; print $counter; $counter++; } print "Success\n"; close (INPUT); close (OUTPUT);