~/$ cat tmp.pl #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; open(my $customers, $ARGV[0])|| die "Couldn't open $ARGV[0] $!\n"; my %cust; while(<$customers>){ chomp; my @rec=split(/\s+/, $_); push @{$cust{$rec[1]}->{time}},$rec[0]; push @{$cust{$rec[1]}->{location}},$rec[2]; } for my $cust (sort keys %cust){ print "$cust: ",join(" ",@{$cust{$cust}->{time}})," : ",join(" ",@{$cust{$cust}->{location}}),"\n"; } ~/$ perl tmp.pl tmp.dat a: 12:10 12:13 : america australia b: 12:11 2:30 : bombay bhutan c: 12:12 : calcutta n: 3:40 : neterland