BEGIN { my %muls = ( K => 1_000, M => 1_000_000, ); sub canonize_units { my ($v) = @_; $v =~ s/^(.*)(.)/ ( exists($muls{$2}) ? $1 * $muls{$2} : "$1$2" ) /e; } } my @line1_fields = split, ' ', ...; my @line2_fields = split, ' ', ...; $line2_fields[5] = canonize_units($line2_fields[5]); my @joined_fields = ( @line1_fields, @line2_fields[ 4 .. $#line2_fields ], );