use strict; use warnings; my @fields = ( 'abc abc1 abc2', 'abc abc1 abc3 abc5', 'abc2 abc3 abc5 abc7 abc9 abc10', 'abc1 abc2 abc3 abc4 abc5 abc6', ); print grep {length > 15} map {s/\s+//g; "$_\n"} @fields;