#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use feature 'say'; sub groupWithEachString { my %hash; $hash{$_}++ for (split //, shift); my $str; foreach my $character (sort keys %hash) { $str .= $character x $hash{$character}; } return $str; } my @strings = qw(aaabbbabc aaabbbabc); my $concatString; foreach my $string (@strings) { $concatString .= $string; } say groupWithEachString($concatString); __END__ $ perl test.pl aaaaaaaabbbbbbbbcc