#! perl -w use strict; my @users = grep /[^\s]+/, ; my $max = 0; $max = $_ > $max ? $_ : $max for map { /(\d+)|/; $1 || 0 } @users; ++$max; push @users, "$max|Rudif|scribe\n"; print for @users; __END__ 1|Title|Description 3|Title|Description 4|Title|Description