#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; my %record; my $a = 'XXXXval - XXXX - - XXXXXXX XX - XXXXX XX TNkeyXXXXXXX'; my ($key, $val) = $a =~ /^(\w+)\s-.*\sTN(\w+)/; $record{$key} = $val; print "Key: $key\n"; print "Value: $record{$key}\n";