my %parsers = ( 'Ethernet' => sub { my $chunk = shift; $chunk =~ tr/\n/ /; return "ETHERNET: $chunk"; }, 'Gigabit' => sub { my $chunk = shift; $chunk =~ tr/\n/ /; return "GIGABIT: $chunk"; } ); $/ = "!\n"; $\ = "\n"; while ( ) { chomp; if ( /^interface (.*)/ && $1 && exists $parsers{$1} ) { print $parsers{$1}( $_ ); } elsif ( /^system (.*)/ ) { # blah... } }