use strict; use warnings; my $logname = 'mylogname'; while () { if (m{(.*/export/home/$logname)/.*/bin/.*}) { print $1, "\n" } } __DATA__ root 28834 28833 0 Aug25 ? 00:00:00 login -- mylogname2 root 29853 29852 0 Aug25 ? 00:00:00 login -- mylogname2 root 5379 5378 0 Aug26 ? 00:00:00 login -- mylogname2 root 5454 5453 0 Aug26 ? 00:00:00 login -- mylogname2 509 6710 1 0 00:20 ? 00:00:28 /export/home/mylogname/folder1/bin/binary 509 6729 1 0 00:35 ? 00:00:11 /export/home/mylogname/folder2/bin/binary 522 7996 1 0 07:00 ? 00:00:07 /export/home/mylogname2/folder1/bin/binary 509 7997 1 0 07:00 ? 00:00:01 /export/home/mylogname/folder3/bin/binary 522 8045 1 0 07:02 ? 00:00:02 /export/home/mylogname2/folder4/bin/binary