my $log_file = $ARGV[0] || 'log.file'; open(my $fh, '<', $log_file) or die "Unable to open '$log_file' for reading: $!"; my %name; while (<$fh>) { chomp; my ($fn, $ln, $rest) = $_ =~ /^(\w+)\s+(\w+)(.*)/; $name{$ln} = "$ln $fn$rest\n"; } for (sort keys %name) { print "$name{$_}"; }