#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $num = 0; while ( my $line = ) { if ( $num == 0 && $line =~ m/LESE (\d+)/ ) { $num = $1; } elsif ( $num > 0 ) { print $line; $num--; } } __DATA__ LESE 3 a1 a2 a3 LESE 2 b1 b2 LESE 2 c1 c2