use Data::Dumper; my %all_entry; while () { chomp; next unless (/^>/); my ($line) = />.*\{((?:GI=\d+,\w+,\d+\-\d+;?)+)\}/; push @{ $all_entry{$1}{$2} }, $3 while $line =~ /GI=(\d+),(\w+),(\d+\-\d+)/g; } print Dumper \%all_entry; __DATA__ >r7.1 |SOURCES={GI=162960844,bw,0-4;GI=162960844,bw,9025576-9025608}| >r6.1 |SOURCES={GI=152989753,bw,0-30;GI=152989753,bw,1877925-1877931}|