I have #search and store foreach my $pattern (@patterns) { while ($query_src=~ /$pattern/g) { $query_counts{$pattern}++; } while ($sbjct_src=~ /$pattern/g) { $sbjct_counts{ $pattern }++; } } and foreach my $key (sort @patterns) { print OUT "\t '$key' seen $query_counts{$key}\n"; } #print OUT "\nTOTAL lenght of 'Sbjct' seq: ","\nlenght $sbjct_src", "cahracters\n", "resou$ #print the sbjct mathces foreach my $key (sort @patterns) { print OUT "\t'$key' seen $sbjct_counts{$key}\n"; } I want to have in a separate variable each match, it reads a file and searches for mathces, if fines one counst is and prints it out, that is doing now, now I do not want id to print it out but to store the value for a future use in any variable new, so I can decide later wich are worthful to have on a report, how canI do that? cheers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]