#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $file = $ARGV[0] || 'default'; open (DNA, '<', $file) or die "Unable to open $file for reading : $!"; my %seq; while ( ) { my $dna = ; my $pairs = "a2" x ((length $dna) / 2); $seq{$_}++ for unpack $pairs , $dna; } print "$_ : $seq{$_}\n" for keys %seq;