my $dhcpdconf = ''; open (DHCPDCONF, "dhcpd.conf") or die "Cannot read from file: $!"; while () { $devices{lc($1)} = '' if (/#.*#.*#.*# Modem MAC: (\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+)/ or /subclass ".*" 1:(\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+:\w+)/); $dhcpdconf .= $_; } print "--\n$dhcpdconf\n--\n";