#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $string = "1:1,2:1,3:2,500:2,505:1"; my @array_1 = split ",",$string; my (@array_2, @array_temp, %hash_1); foreach ( @array_1 ) { @array_temp = split ":",$_; push @array_2, $array_temp[0]; $hash_1{$array_temp[0]} = $array_temp[1]; }