#!/your/perl/here use strict; use warnings; my @accounts = ("A x1 B y1 C z1 D v1 E w1 F", "A x2 B y2 C zzz2 D v2 E w2 F", "A x3 B y3 C z3 D v3 E w3 F", "A x4 B y4 C D v4 E wwww4 F", # note change to C..D "A x5 B y5 C z5 D v5 E w5 F", "A x6 B y6 C z6 D v6 E F"); my @fields = ("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F"); my $regex = join '\s+(\w*)\s+', @fields; my @accounts_2 = map {[/$regex/]} @accounts; __END__