#! /usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my %Elements; my $line = 'a,H,5'; my (undef, $symbol, $weight) = split /,/, $line; $Elements{$symbol} = $weight; my $requestelement = $Elements{'H'}; my $symbolweight = $Elements{$symbol}; print $requestelement,' ',$symbolweight; ---------- 5 5