w1 w2 w3 [t4 w4] w5 w6 #### w1 w2 w3 w4 t4 w5 w6 #### use strict; my $file = $ARGV[0]; open IN, $file or die "Can't open"; my @file =; close IN; m/\[(\S+)\s(\S+)\]/ ? print qq[$2 $1\n] :print qq[$_] for @file; #### w1 w2 w3 [t4 w4] w5 w6