#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my %null; while (){ my @fields = split(/\|/); for my $i (0..$#fields){ $null{"field$i"}++ unless $fields[$i]; } } for my $key (sort keys %null){ print "$key->$null{$key}\n"; } __DATA__ first||third|| alpha|beta||delta| ||c|d| one|||four|