@c = (uc join ' ', qw< add 1 alter 3 backup 2 bottom 1 Cappend 2 change 1 Schange Cinsert 2 Clast 3 compress 4 copy 2 count 3 Coverlay 3 cursor 3 delete 3 Cdelete 2 down 1 duplicate 3 xEdit 1 expand 3 extract 3 find 1 Nfind 2 Nfindup 6 NfUP 3 Cfind 2 findUP 3 fUP 2 forward 2 get help 1 hexType 4 input 1 powerInput 3 join 1 split 2 spltJOIN load locate 1 Clocate 2 lowerCase 3 upperCase 3 Lprefix 2 macro merge 2 modify 3 move 2 msg next 1 overlay 1 parse preserve 4 purge 3 put putD query 1 quit read recover 3 refresh renum 3 repeat 3 replace 1 Creplace 2 reset 3 restore 4 rgtLEFT right 2 left 2 save set shift 2 si sort sos stack 3 status 4 top transfer 3 type 1 up 1 >) =~ /([a-zA-Z]+(?:\s+\d+)?)(?=\s+[a-zA-Z]|$)/g; my %abr = ('' => '', ' ' => ''); for (@c) { ($w,$sl) = split ' ', $_; $ll = length($w); $sl = $ll unless $sl; $abr{substr($w,0,$sl)} = $w; map { $abr{substr($w, 0, $_)} = $w } $sl .. $ll; } $fmt = "%-10s"; $inp = sprintf $fmt, 'Input:'; $out = sprintf $fmt, 'Output:'; for $str ('', qw) { $inp .= sprintf $fmt, $str; $out .= sprintf $fmt, $abr{uc $str} // '*error*'; } print "$inp\n$out\n";