#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my $curr_grp; my (%host, %user, %domain); while (my $line = ) { if ($line =~ /^\s*(?!<\()([\w-]+)(?!=\))/) { $curr_grp = $1; } if ($curr_grp) { my @entries; push @entries, $1 while $line =~ /\((.*?)\)/g; for my $entry (@entries) { my ($host, $user, $domain) = split /,/, $entry; push @{$host{$curr_grp}} , $host if $host ; push @{$user{$curr_grp}} , $user if $user ; push @{$domain{$curr_grp}}, $domain if $domain; } } } print Dumper \%host; print Dumper \%user; print Dumper \%domain; __DATA__ nifty-group (host,,zanzibar.org) (host-1,,) (host-1.domain,,) (host_234,,) (foo,,) (host-1,phil,) (host-1.domain,,) (host_234,,) other-group (h2,,) (h6,,)