$ perl -e' $x = < ) { my @fields = split /\t/; for my $i ( 0 .. $#fields ) { if ( $fields[ $i ] eq $last[ $i ] ) { $fields[ $i ] = ""; } else { last; } } print join "\t", @fields; @last = split /\t/; } ' 1 300 1_a 30 1_b 20 2_a 22 2_b 12 320 1_a 10 1_b 30 2_a 32 2_b 22 2 312 1_a 30 1_b 20 2_a 22 2_b 12 310 1_a 31 1_b 20 2_a 21 2_b 12