use warnings; use strict; my @lines; while () { chomp; push @lines, [unpack ("(a2)*", $_)]; } __DATA__ 0912203749 0725284648 0608294149 0622424347 1219303436 1729313449 1015162331 #### for my $column (0 .. 4) { my @byColumn = map {$_->[$column]} @lines; print "@byColumn\n"; } #### 09 07 06 06 12 17 10 12 25 08 22 19 29 15 20 28 29 42 30 31 16 37 46 41 43 34 34 23 49 48 49 47 36 49 31