Example: (5/4/07 1:45:29 PM CDT) 7819953:##uno cinco cuatro totes##;pp I would like the following result: (5/4/07 1:45:29 PM CDT) 7819953:##1 2 4 totes##;pp #### #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; ## LAN filename for translation my $filetwo="VoiceLink only Soriana.txt"; ## Debug file translated my $fileout3="fileout3.txt"; ## Debug file to be translated, must be saved as ANSI my $linein3="Log_097102053_2007-05-04_20-34-51.txt"; ## FIL file with translations my $linein = "COM_211_RAD_07A_ES_MX.FIL"; my $englishword; my $spanishword; my %langhash; my @arrayin; open (FILEIN, $linein) or die "Can't open first file.\n";; ## Read in each line from FIL file and create a hash table while ($linein = ) { chomp $linein; @arrayin = split /\|/, $linein; ##creates an array with split function using | as separator $englishword = trim ( $arrayin[0] ); $spanishword = trim ( $arrayin[1] ); print "$spanishword -> $englishword\n"; ## test print $langhash{$spanishword} = $englishword; } close(FILEIN); ## Open Lan file to read in the English and Spanish words open (FILEIN2, $filetwo) or die "Can't open debug file to be translated.\n";; ## Go through each line and replace while () { next unless ( /.:\s*\S/ ); my ( $lang, $text ) = split /:/, $_, 2; if ( $lang eq "Default" ) { $englishword = trim( $text ); # takes care of chomping } elsif ( $lang eq "Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX" ) { $spanishword = trim( $text ); $langhash{$spanishword} = $englishword; } } ## while (($spanishword, $englishword) = each %langhash){ ## Test print of entire hash table ## print "$englishword => $spanishword\n"; ## } close(FILEIN2); ## Open debug file to convert from English to Spanish open (FILEIN3, $linein3) or die "Can't open debug file.\n"; open (FILEOUT3, ">$fileout3") or die "Can't open output file.\n"; ## Go through each line and replace while ($linein3 = ) { chomp $linein3; if ($linein3 =~ /##\s*([^#]+?)\s*##/) { if (exists ($langhash{$1})) { $linein3=~ s/##\s*([^#]+?)\s*##/##$langhash{$1}##/; print FILEOUT3 "$linein3\n"; } else { $linein3=~ s/##\s*([^#]+?)\s*##/##$1##/; print FILEOUT3 "$linein3\n"; } } else { print FILEOUT3 "$linein3\n";} ##print unmodified line where no double pound exists } close(FILEIN3); close(FILEOUT3); sub trim { for (my $s = $_[0]) { s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//; return $_; } } #### barra -> / cero -> 0 uno -> 1 dos -> 2 tres -> 3 cuatro -> 4 cinco -> 5 seis -> 6 siete -> 7 ocho -> 8 nueve -> 9 #### I have the following log below: (5/4/07 1:44:44 PM CDT) 7782719:##uno seis uno ##;pp (5/4/07 1:45:29 PM CDT) 7819953:##uno cinco cuatro##;pp (5/4/07 1:45:29 PM CDT) 7821389:##uno seis uno ##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:01 PM CDT) 7976990:##uno seis uno ##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:01 PM CDT) 7979657:## tres empaques##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:16 PM CDT) 7980901:##uno seis uno ##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:33 PM CDT) 8007951:##Tome tres empaques ##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:48 PM CDT) 8010439:##BEEP (375,2)## (5/4/07 1:48:48 PM CDT) 8011336:##Selección completa. ##;pp (5/4/07 1:48:48 PM CDT) 8012745:## andén Anden uno tres cinco##;pp