#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my %count; open (INPUT, '<', "some_input_file") or die "unable to open some_input_file"); while () { my ($number) =~ /(\d+)/; #maybe???? next unless $number; #skip undef's $count{$number}++; #new key if $number not there } foreach my $number (sort{$a <=> $b} keys %count) #numeric sort { print "$number occurs $count{$number} time(s)\n"; }