my @ind = (1, 6); while () { my @parts = split; for my $i (@ind) { if ($parts[$i] eq "0") { @parts = (@parts[0..$i], '', @parts[$i+1..$#parts]); } else { while (length($parts[$i+1]) < $parts[$i]) { $parts[$i+1] .= ' ' . splice @parts, $i+2, 1; } } } print "$.: '$parts[2]', '$parts[7]'\n"; }