use Tie::IxHash; tie my %group, Tie::IxHash; ## group them by ID, preserving the order seen for (@records) { my $id = $_->{ID}; push @{ $group{$id} }, $_; } ## put special header at beginning of groups larger than 1 my $last_id; while (my ($curr_id, $records) = each %group) { unshift @$records, { ... } if @$records > 1; $last_id = $curr_id; } ## flatten everything out my @complete_list = map @$_, values %group;