my %dup; # duplicate charachters hash print "\n"; for () { chomp; next if /^\s*$/; my @elements = split", ",$_; map{exists $dup{$_} ? $_= " " : $dup{$_}++ }@elements; print_row(@elements); } print "
\n"; sub print_row { print""; print"$_" for @_; print"\n"; } __DATA__ csc, tech, base csc, comp, acm csc, mous, base