#!/usr/bin/perl # http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=1215128 use strict; use warnings; my %chapters; my $previous = undef; my $buffer; my $max = 4096; while() { if( /^Chapter/ ) { $chapters{$_} = $previous = [ tell(DATA) - length, length ]; } elsif( defined $previous ) { $previous->[1] += length; } } use Data::Dump 'pp'; print pp \%chapters; print "\n\n"; for ( sort keys %chapters ) { my ($start, $length) = $chapters{$_}->@*; seek DATA, $start, 0; while( $length > $max ) { read DATA, $buffer, $max; print $buffer; $length -= $max; } read DATA, $buffer, $length; print $buffer; } __DATA__ Chapter One There were lots of monkeys here and they ate all the bananas... lots more text up to hundreds of words. Chapter Nine This chapter has probably 1000 words. Chapter Two Here is the text in the second chapter... Chapter Five Here is the text in the fifth chapter... every chapter is of differing length, some long some short.