c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "use autodie; no autodie qw(open close); ;; use List::MoreUtils qw(uniq); ;; use Data::Dump qw(dd); ;; my $file = qq{bird beak\n} . qq{bird beak\n} . qq{bird claw\n} . qq{bird wings\n} . qq{bird feathers\n} . qq{snake fangs\n} . qq{snake scales\n} . qq{snake fangs\n} . qq{snake tail\n} ; print qq{[[$file]]}; ;; open my $fh, '<', \$file or die qq{opening ram file: $!}; ;; my %hash; while (my $line = <$fh>) { my $parsed = my ($animal, $organ) = $line =~ m{ \A ([[:alpha:]]+) \s+ ([[:alpha:]]+) \Z }xmsg; ;; die qq{bad line '$line'} unless $parsed; ;; push @{ $hash{$animal} }, $organ; } ;; close $fh or die qq{closing ram file: $!}; ;; @$_ = uniq @$_ for values %hash; dd \%hash; " [[bird beak bird beak bird claw bird wings bird feathers snake fangs snake scales snake fangs snake tail ]] { bird => ["beak", "claw", "wings", "feathers"], snake => ["fangs", "scales", "tail"], }