use Modern::Perl; my %keys; while () { my ($key, $data1, $data2) = split /,/; unless (exists($keys{$key})){ # do something say $key; # just as an example $keys{$key} = 1; } } __DATA__ key1, abd, 123 key2, dhde, 9+6+ key3, dxdc, edazedaz key1, dea, 564dz key1, deksizi, 4833 key4, eoz, 852662 key2, dzdadazd, 9566