use IO::File; open (INPUT_FILE, $ARGV[0]) || die "cant open file\n"; my @body = ; my $count= 0; $no_of_lines=scalar(@body); for ( $i = 0 ; $i < $no_of_lines ; $i++) { $variable = $body[$i]; if ( $variable =~ "field1") { print "$field1,"; } if ( $variable =~ "field2") { print "$field2,"; } if ( $variable =~ "field2") { print "$field2,"; } ... ... } close file;