use Data::Dumper; my %patterns = ( qr/SS\s+(\d+)/ => sub { $_->{SS} = $1 }, qr/PL\s+([=#]?)(\d+)([=#])(\d+)/ => sub { $_->{SP} = $2; $_->{LP} = $4 }, qr/PV\s+([a-z]?\d+)(\.\d+)?/ => sub { }, # to be written... qr/RL\s+(\d+)([,'"])/ => sub { $_->{RL} = $1; }, qr/SA\s+(\d+)/ => sub { $_->{SA} = $1 }, qr/DS\s+(\d+)/ => sub { $_->{DS} = $1 }, qr/CT\s+([#^]?)\s*(\d+)\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)/, => sub { }, qr/CL\s+([#^]?)(\d+)\s+(\S+)/, => sub { }, ); sub MAGIC { my $line = $_[0]; $_ = {}; $line =~ s/^\s*//; LOOP: while (length($line)) { for my $k (keys %patterns) { if ($line =~ s/^$k(?:\s+|\z)//) { $patterns{$k}->(); next LOOP; } } warn "got stuck on: $line\n"; $_->{leftover} = $line; last; } $_; } print Dumper( MAGIC("SS 21 PL 2#3 PV 51.3 CL #110 +0 RL 126' SA 106 DS 93")); __END__ $VAR1 = { 'SA' => '106', 'DS' => '93', 'RL' => '126', 'SP' => '2', 'SS' => '21', 'LP' => '3' };