Not sure of your data but this might help:
my @seqList;
my @sequences;
my $dnaString;
my $count = 0;
my @DNA = <DATA>;
foreach my $line (@DNA) {
if ($line=~/^>(\S+)/){
push (@seqList, $1);
push (@sequences, $dnaString) if $count++;
$dnaString = '';
}
else {
chomp $line;
$dnaString .= $line;
}
}
push (@sequences, $dnaString); # need to push last one
__DATA__
>123 blah
abcdef
ghijkl
>456 de dah
mnopqr
>789 nothing wanted here
stuvwxyz
# OUTPUT
@seqList = (
'123',
'456',
'789'
);
@sequences = (
'abcdefghijkl',
'mnopqr',
'stuvwxyz'
);