use strict ; open( TEST, 'test.txt' ) || die "Couldn't open it"; my @names = () ; while ( ) { chomp ; my ( $lname, $fname ) = split /,/ ; push @names, $fname, $lname ; } close( TEST ) ; open( BTEST, '>test.txt' ) ; while ( @names ) { my ( $fname, $lname ) = splice @names, 0, 2 ; print BTEST "$fname $lname\n" ; } close( BTEST ) ;