test.txt total Laptops produced: 60 total cpu sold: 57 total mice produced: 40 total cpu sold: 45 total Laptops produced: 68 total mice produced: 48 total cpu sold: 51 total printers produced: 19 total monitors produced: 149 76 wireless cards produced #!/usr/bin/perl # use strict; use warnings; use List::Util q{first}; sub search_phrase{ my ( $inFile, @phrases ) = @_; my $lastPhrase = $phrases[ -1 ]; open my $inFH, q{<}, $inFile or die qq{open: $inFile: $!\n}; my @lines = <$inFH>; close $inFH or die qq{close: $!\n}; foreach my $phrase ( @phrases ) { my $rxPhrase = qr{\Q$phrase\E}; my $lineNo = first { $lines[ $_ ] =~ $rxPhrase } 0 .. $#lines; unless ( defined $lineNo ) { print qq{$phrase: not found in sequence\n}; next; } print qq{$1\n} if $lines[ $lineNo ] =~ m{\Q$lastPhrase\E\s*(\d+)}; $lineNo ++; splice @lines, 0, $lineNo; } } $file_n = "test.txt"; $phrase1 = "total Laptops produced:"; $phrase2 = "total monitors produced:"; $phrase3 = "total cpu sold:"; &search_phrase($file_n, $phrase1, $phrase2, $phrase3);