#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my %codes; open (FILE, "file.txt") || die "Can't open data file, perl says $!"; while () { my @array_codes = /[A-Za-z0-9]+/g; foreach my $code_key (@array_codes) { $codes{$code_key}++; } } print "$_\t$codes{$_}\n" for sort keys %codes;