#!/usr/bin/perl use File::Copy; use strict; my (@col, @vals, $val, $i); open(COL, ") { chomp($_); (@vals) = split(":", $_); push @col, $vals[1]; #store values for column 2 } close(COL); open(OUT, ">out.txt"); open(COL, ") { chomp($_); (@vals) = split(":", $_); $vals[2] = $col[$i++]; #replace values in column 3 print OUT join(":", @vals) . "\n"; } close(COL); close(OUT); copy("out.txt", "original.txt");