#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @array=('bent','svend','gert','pete','svend','pete'); my $prev=""; my $count=0; foreach(sort @array) { if($prev ne $_) { if($count) { printf("%s:%d ",$prev,$count); } $prev=$_; $count=0; } $count++; } printf("%s:%d\n",$prev,$count) if $count;