my @data = ; for (my $i=0; $i <= $#data -1; $i++) { my @current = split(" ", $data[$i]); my @next = split(" ", $data[$i+1]); if ($current[2] eq $next[2]) { $data[$i] = undef; } } print @data; __DATA__ G1 X50 F30000 G1 X100 F30000 G1 X100 F3000