Filename1 Item1 - Answer Filename2 Item1 - Answer Filename1 Item2 - Answer #### my %files; $files{Filename1} = [ 'Item1 - Answer' ]; push @{ $files{Filename1} }, 'Item2 - Answer'; ... #### use strict; use warnings; use autodie; # open the data file for reading my $data_filename = 'data.txt'; open my $in_fh, '<', $data_filename; # output files my $current_filename = ''; my $out_fh; while (<$in_fh>) # process one line of data { my ($new_filename, $item) = split ' ', $_, 2; if ($new_filename ne $current_filename) { finalize_table($out_fh) if defined $out_fh; open $out_fh, '>', $new_filename; $current_filename = $new_filename; initialize_table($out_fh); } add_row($out_fh, $item); } close $in_fh; finalize_table($out_fh) if defined $out_fh; sub initialize_table { ... } sub add_row { ... } sub finalize_table { my ($fh) = @_; # ... close $out_fh; }