#!/usr/bin/perl use Data::Dumper; use strict; my %count; for my $i (3..6) { my $filename = "file.20020$i"; open(DATA,$filename); while () { my ($name) = split(/\s+/,$_); $count{$filename}{$name}++; } } print Dumper %count; #### $VAR1 = 'file.200206'; $VAR2 = { 'john' => '1', 'chris' => '1', 'lisa' => '1' };