use warnings; use strict; my %data_arrang; while () { my @data = split /, / => $_, 2; push @{ $data_arrang{ shift(@data) } }, @data; } print "Enter your date: "; chomp( my $date = ); if ( exists $data_arrang{$date} ) { print "goods,quality : ", @{ $data_arrang{$date} }; } else { print "Date entered didn't exist\n" } __DATA__ 12-11-2006, books, 100 10-11-2006, bag, 10 10-12-2006, pen, 15