Create a sub and call it in the foreach passing a (\%val,$_) each time around. in the sub, create a format with a name and localize $~ (current format) like this local $~ = 'SOME_FORMAT_NAME'; then just call write like this: write(); return the total of price * quantity as a return value to the caller in the foreach loop and it to $total; for the end print, just define the STDOUT format for printing the total after the last call to write immediately outside the foreach (write automatically calls STDOUT).