Hi PerlMonks, I have a script here that need some tweaking to achieve the outcome that I am after:

my %c;
while( <> ){
    chomp;
    my($c2,$c4,$c12)=(split/\|/)[1,3,11];
    $c{"$c2|$c4"}||=[$_,0];
    ++$c{"$c2|$c4"}[1] if $c12=~/\S/;
}
$"="|";
for( sort keys %c ){
    print "@{$c{$_}}\n";
}
[download]

Here is the input file:

col1|col2|col3|col4|col5|col6|col7|col8|col9|col10|col11|col12
BLA|001036|S|3228|10|1|2|3|001036|W035|S| 
BLA|001036|S|3228|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655092918
BLA|001036|S|3228|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655092926
BLA|001036|S|3228|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655092934
BLA|001036|S|3228|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655092942
BLT|600123|S|3437|0|20|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
BRO|900177|S|3531|-1|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
CHL|123777|S|3327|3|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
CHL|123777|S|3327|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655093791
CHL|123777|S|3327|0|0|0|0|001036|W035|S|08961029909655093775
[download]

Basically I am trying to count the number of string that appears in the last column and append the count as a new column in the output file. My references/main keys for the initial array are column 2 (001036) and column 4 (3228). For each new occurrence of col 2 and col 4(e.g 001036 and 3228), the last column would always be a space (" "). So if($col12 != " "), i need to count the number of string in the last column that appeared after it. The final outcome should look something like the following:

BLA|001036|S|3228|10|1|2|3|001036|W035|S| |4
BLT|600123|S|3437|0|20|0|0|001036|W035|S| |0
BRO|900177|S|3531|-1|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| |0
CHL|123777|S|3327|3|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| |2
[download]

When I run the script, what I am getting is:

BLA|001036|S|3228|10|1|2|3|001036|W035|S| 
|4
CHL|123777|S|3327|3|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
|2
BLT|600123|S|3437|0|20|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
|0
BRO|900177|S|3531|-1|0|0|0|001036|W035|S| 
|0
[download]

How do I get the count value to not print to a new line? In desperate need of help. I am fairly new with perl. Thank you in advance!! Regards, Jason