use Modern::Perl; use Data::Dumper; my @field_names; my %master_hash; while () { chomp; if (1..1) { @field_names = split /\t/ and next; } my %this_hash; my @values = split /\t/; @this_hash{ @field_names } = @values; $master_hash{$values[0]} = \%this_hash; } print Dumper \%master_hash; __DATA__ Name Pet monkey John Biggles Steve Bubbles Henry Binky