use Data::Dumper; my $tpl = ['A -4 B','B -4 C','C -4 A','A -4 B']; get_alphb_fr_tpl($tpl); sub get_alphb_fr_tpl { my $aref = shift; my @str = grep (!/[\d+\s+]/,map{ split " ",$_} @{$aref}) ; print Dumper \@str ; return; }