use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my $command = "ps -f"; my $id = "PID"; my @ps =`$command`; $ps[0] =~ s/^\s*//; my @header = split /\s+/, shift @ps; my ($posid) = grep { $header[$_] eq $id } 0..$#header; die "$id: No such column!\n" unless defined( $posid ); splice @header, $posid, 1; my %psdata; while( @ps ) { my $row = shift @ps; chomp $row; $row =~ s/^\s*//; my @row = split /\s+/, $row, $#header+2; my $this_id = splice @row, $posid, 1; @{$psdata{$this_id}}{@header} = @row; } print Dumper( %psdata );