i suggest you use a hash of records instead of multiple arrays. my solution is below. you'll have to modify it to use a file instead of the DATA handle.

#!/usr/bin/perl
require 5.006;
use strict;
use warnings;

my %dataset;
my @fields = ( 
  'Customer Name', 
  'Telephone Number',
  'Agency Reference',
  'Status Description',
);

{
  local $/ = \100;
  while( <DATA> )
  {
    my @record;
    push @record, unpack('a6a10a10a10a64', $_);
    @{ $dataset{$record[0]} }{ @fields } = @record[1..$#record];  }
}

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%dataset;

# print just the Telephone Numbers, sorted by record (job number)
print $dataset{$_}{'Telephone Number'},$/ for sort keys %dataset;

__DATA__
1JJJJJ1NNNNNNNNN1TTTTTTTTT1RRRRRRRRR1SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
+SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS2JJJJJ2NNNNNNNNN2TTTTTTTTT2RRRRRRRRR2S
+SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS3JJJJJ
+3NNNNNNNNN3TTTTTTTTT3RRRRRRRRR3SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
+SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[download]
which produces:

> perl t-fixedwidth.pl

$VAR1 = {
          '1JJJJJ' => {
                        'Status Description' => '1SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
+SSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS',
                        'Agency Reference' => '1RRRRRRRRR',
                        'Customer Name' => '1NNNNNNNNN',
                        'Telephone Number' => '1TTTTTTTTT'
                      },
          '3JJJJJ' => {
                        'Status Description' => '3SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
+SSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS',
                        'Agency Reference' => '3RRRRRRRRR',
                        'Customer Name' => '3NNNNNNNNN',
                        'Telephone Number' => '3TTTTTTTTT'
                      },
          '2JJJJJ' => {
                        'Status Description' => '2SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
+SSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS',
                        'Agency Reference' => '2RRRRRRRRR',
                        'Customer Name' => '2NNNNNNNNN',
                        'Telephone Number' => '2TTTTTTTTT'
                      }
        };
1TTTTTTTTT
2TTTTTTTTT
3TTTTTTTTT

>

[download]

~Particle *accelerates*

In reply to Re: extract part of line by particle
in thread extract part of line by jdawes

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