Dear Monks,

My program uses a hash table to capture data, but for the same key there are several values in the input files. So I had to make two hash tables because there are two different values for the same key. It works. But I do not know how to generalise with three or more without having to use my %hash_3, my %hash_4, ... Could you check ? Thanks

Here is the code 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my $inFile = q{animals.txt};
open my $INFILE, q{<}, $inFile or die;

my %hash;
my %hash_2;

while (<$INFILE>) {
    $_ =~ s/\s+$//;
    if (/^forest(\s+)(\w+)/){
        my $country = $2;
        while (<$INFILE>){
        chomp($_);
            if (/^-fox.*(\d\d\d\d)/){
                chomp;
                my $fox_hour = $1;
                if (defined $hash{$country}){
                    $hash_2{$country}=$fox_hour;
                }
                else{
                    $hash{$country}=$fox_hour;
                }
            }
            last if (/monkey/);
        }
    }
}    
    
close $INFILE;
    
my $c_outfile = q{countries_results.csv};
open my $c_OUTFILE, q{>}, $c_outfile or die;

my $c_inFile = q{countries_list.csv};
open my $c_INFILE, q{<}, $c_inFile or die;


my $country;

while (my $line = <$c_INFILE>){
    my @Elements = split(";",$line); 
    $country = $Elements[0];
    $country =~ s/\s+$//;
    print $c_OUTFILE "$country;$hash{$country};$hash_2{$country}\n";
}    

close $c_INFILE;
close $c_OUTFILE;

[download]

Here are the two input files

Here is the input file "animals.txt" 

forest France
-wolf
-toad
-fox 1350

monkey

land
-dog
-cat
-slug

forest France
-deer
-swan
-fox 1426

monkey

forest USA
-deer
-swan
-fox 1560

monkey

[download]

Here is "countries_list" 

Italy
USA
France

[download]

And here are the output results 

Italy;;
USA;1560;
France;1350;1426

[download]

In reply to add values with hash by steph_bow

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