Hi johnrock47, what have you tried here? Is this just homework? I'll provide a solution based on my local machine's arp table (as you haven't supplied the config file on the server you mentioned), but I doubt it's homework worthy... show what attempt you've made and you'll get better help:

arp -a | perl -MData::Dump -anE '$F[1]=~s/(?:\)|\()//g;$h{$F[1]}=$F[3]
+}{dd\%h'
{
  "172.31.219.36" => "00:ae:da:23:85:d0",
  "192.168.1.1"   => "48:f8:b3:3c:30:33",
  "192.168.1.115" => "70:77:81:43:ae:ab",
  "192.168.1.138" => "84:38:38:9b:61:64",
  "192.168.1.140" => "00:ac:1a:61:0e:66",
  "192.168.1.143" => "<incomplete>",
  "192.168.1.4"   => "<incomplete>",
}
[download]

You've been here since October... How do I post a question effectively?

update: I tried to golf it a bit more, but I couldn't figure out how to put the substitution within the assignment to the hash. Without a lot of time to test, it appeared as though the expression was returning match count perhaps, instead of result. Can anyone tell me how to get the result returned in such a case?

... -anE ...

Hi stevieb, -lansE

I saw something by choroba today on SO about -s... I'll do some research on what you've posted. Thanks!

Hi stevieb this is exactly my setup for ip and mac addresses but lets say the file is in my home directory do i need to open the file using a file handle in perl and then write the code and close the file? Thanks