perl -pe " s/^use\s+(\S+)\s+(.+)$/sprintf q!use %-20s %s!, $1, $2/e; " < input > output #### #<<< do not let perltidy touch this use Carp qw(confess); use Cwd qw(abs_path); use File::Basename qw(fileparse); use Data::Dumper qw(); use Digest::SHA1 qw(); #>>>