perl -ne '$n=$.-1; open F, ">$n.txt" unless $n%5; print F' file Creates: 0.txt 5.txt 10.txt ... #### perl -ne 'BEGIN{$s="file000"} open F, ">". $s++. ".txt" unless ($.-1)%5; print F' file Creates: file000.txt file001.txt file002.txt ...