$ cat test.txt AB000000026JHAHKDFK AB000000028JHKHKHKJ AB00000003033AFSFAS AB000000030HJHKH80J AB000000030LOIKJUJ8 AB0000000324446KJHK $ $ perl -ne '$c = substr ($_, 9, 2); print if $c ne $prev_c; $prev_c=$c;' test.txt AB000000026JHAHKDFK AB000000028JHKHKHKJ AB00000003033AFSFAS AB0000000324446KJHK