use MooX::Struct Record => [qw( $id $et @ac $os $pt @rs @ra )], Person => [qw( $surname $initials )], ; use Data::Dumper; my %IS_PERSON = ( ra => 1, ); my %IS_LIST = ( ac => 1, rs => 1, ra => 1, ); my %record; my @records; while () { chomp; my ($field, $value) = /^(..)\s*(.+)$/; $field = lc $field; if ($field eq 'id' and keys %record) { push @records, Record->new(%record); %record = (); # start new record } if ($IS_LIST{$field}) { push @{$record{$field}}, map { $IS_PERSON{$field} ? Person[split] : $_ } split m{,\s*}, $value; } else { $record{$field} = $IS_PERSON{$field} ? Person[split / /, $value] : $value; } } # EOF, push last record push @records, Record->new(%record); print $records[1]->ra->[0]->surname; __DATA__ ID AaaI ET R2 AC RB00001; OS Acetobacter aceti ss aceti PT XmaIII RS CGGCCG, 1; RA Tagami H., Tayama K., Tohyama T., Fukaya M., Okumura H., Kawamura Y., RA Horinouchi S., Beppu T.; ID AaaII ET R2 AC RB00001; OS Acetobacter aceti ss aceti PT XmaIII RS CGGCCG, 1; RA Horinouchi S., Beppu T.; ID AaaIII ET R2 AC RB00001; OS Acetobacter aceti ss aceti PT XmaIII RA Horinouchi S., Beppu T.; RS CGGCCG, 1;