while(<>){ if (/^#+/){NEXT;} else{ chomp; @data=split (/\s+/,$_); $a=$data[0]; $b=$data[3]; $c=$data[4]; $d=$data[5]; $row{$a}{$b}{$c}=$d; } } print "Fished establishing hashs.\n"; #### my %row; while(<>){ next if /^#/; # if there's "one or more" then there's one! chomp; my @data=split; $row{ @data[0,3,4] }=$data[5]; }