my %data; while () { chomp; my ($firstnum, $secondnum, $thingy, @bits) = split /\s/; my $key = sprintf("%s\x00%s\x00%s", $firstnum, $secondnum, $thingy); for my $i (0 .. $#bits) { $data{$key}[$i] = [] unless exists $data{$key}[$i]; push @{ $data{$key}[$i] }, $bits[$i]; } } foreach my $key (sort keys %data) { print join q[ ], split "\x00", $key; print q[ ]; print join q[ ], map { join '/', @$_ } @{ $data{$key} }; print "\n"; } __DATA__ 1 51 Brahui A C A A T 1 51 Brahui A C A G T 3 51 Brahui A C A G C 3 51 Brahui A C G A T 5 51 Brahui A C G A T 5 51 Brahui A C G G C 7 51 Brahui A C G A T 7 51 Brahui A C G G T 9 51 Brahui A C G G T 9 51 Brahui A C G G T