Thank you soooo much for helping .. i'm a newbie to perl and figuring out everything as i go on ...
The code works perfectly ..!!!!! However , while this works for a sample data , when i use it parse the actual text file , it behaves weirdly .. This is what i get for the sample data : 
{
  AWOFFSET    => 5,
  BQOFFSET    => 3,
  BQOFFSETAFR => 3,
  CAND        => "BOTH",
  CELL        => "LUC325C",
  CELLR       => "LUC232A",
  CS          => "NO",
  DIR         => "MUTUAL",
  HIHYST      => 5,
  KHYST       => 3,
  KOFFSETN    => "",
  KOFFSETP    => 0,
  LHYST       => 3,
  LOFFSETN    => "",
  LOFFSETP    => 0,
  LOHYST      => 3,
  OFFSETN     => "",
  OFFSETP     => 0,
  TRHYST      => 2,
  TROFFSETN   => "",
  TROFFSETP   => 0,
}

Press any key to continue . . .

[download]

And this is what i get when i execute it on a text file : 
{ CELL => "LUC325C" }
{ BOTH => "", LUC325B => "", MUTUAL => "", NO => "" }
{}
{
  BQOFFSETAFR => "",
  HIHYST      => 5,
  LOHYST      => "3       0",
  OFFSETN     => "",
  OFFSETP     => 3,
}
{ BOTH => "", LUC116A => "", MUTUAL => "", NO => "" }
{}
{
  BQOFFSETAFR => "",
  HIHYST      => 5,
  LOHYST      => "3       0",
  OFFSETN     => "",
  OFFSETP     => 3,
}
{ BOTH => "", LUC204A => "", MUTUAL => "", NO => "" }
{}
Press any key to continue . . .

[download]

Any idea as to why this behaves differently for the same set of data ?????

In reply to Re^6: Reading tab/whitespace delimited text file by reaper9187
in thread Reading tab/whitespace delimited text file by reaper9187

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