Hi, Try this (modifing up as you please):
open (INPUT, "input.txt" ) or die "Can't open: $!"; open (OUTPUT, "output.txt") or die "Can't open: $!"; my %data; my $state = 0; while (<INPUT>) { chomp; $data{$state++} = $_ if $state == 0; $data{$state++} = $_ if $state == 1; $data{$state++} = $_ if $state == 2; if ($state == 3) { print OUTPUT "definition1 $data{0}\n"; print OUTPUT "definition2\n"; print OUTPUT "definition3\n"; print OUTPUT "definition4:$data{1}\n\n"; # Reset state $state = 0; } } close (INPUT ) or die "Can't close: $!"; close (OUTPUT) or die "Can't close: $!"; --- There is obviously many ways of doing this, with various levels of reliability and readability... I guess someone is going to do the regex now... :) This *should* work, and is clean enough looking for a beginner to understand - maybe. Jonathan Paton __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]