use 5.026; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; open my $dataFH, q{<}, \ <<__EOD__ or die $!; T:REDS P:GRIFFEY P:GRIFFEY P:PEREZ P:GRIFFEY P:PEREZ P:ROSE P:BENCH T:PHILLIES P:ROSE P:ROSE T:MARINERS P:GRIFFEY P:PEREZ __EOD__ my $data = do { local $/; <$dataFH>; }; close $dataFH or die $!; my @teams = split m{(?=^T)}m, $data; my %teamAccts; foreach my $teamData ( @teams ) { $teamData =~ s{[PT]:}{}g; my( $teamLine, @playerLines ) = split m{\n}, $teamData; $teamAccts{ $teamLine } = [ do { my %seen; grep { ! $seen{ $_ } ++ } @playerLines; } ]; } print Data::Dumper ->new( [ \ %teamAccts ], [ qw{ *teamAccts } ] ) ->Sortkeys( 1 ) ->Dumpxs();